Beyond Silence
by Shibara
Summary: G1. Soundave must surveil a captive Autobot, without realizing some perceptions of reality can be infectious... and terrifying. Rated M for violence, possible future smut, dark themes and graphic violence. Proper warnings inside. EDIT: Now beta'd!
1. Chapter 1

This is my first attempt at G1 stuff, even thoguh I haven't actualy seen the series. Blame Ultharkitty for her incredibly awesome portraying of Vortex and Panthothenate's amazing Soundwave/Bluestreak fic, which triggered this evil plot bunny.

Chapter content advice: Dark themes, graphic violence, implied rape and graphic robot gore. This story does not have scenes of the smutty persuasion YET, but I'm not sure of where it will go beyond a certain point. Just to leave things clear, if there is such a scene in the future, it would be tactile/plug'n'play.

Notes: Time measurements where taken from tfwiki:

vorn = 83 years  
>deca-vorn = 8.3 years<br>stellar cycle = ~7.5 months  
>orn = 1 Cybertron day<br>joor = 6 hours  
>cycle = 1.25 hours<br>breem = 8.3 minutes  
>klik = 1.2 minutes<p>

mechanometer ~ meter  
>kil ~ kilometer<p>

EDIT: Now this fic has a beta! White_Aster has gently agreed to help me with this, so I'll take this chance to thank her once again for being bags of awesome-cookies and teaching me stuff all over the place ^^

Enjoy =)

* * *

><p>CHAPTER 01<p>

0

It was like a wall: a wall made of sound. And he fancied for a minute that he might actually be able to feel it with his servos if he tried.

"_-and you know what? It's not even funny anymore how lame your tactics are! Starscream wouldn't be able to trace his aft's location with both hands and a GPS. And let's not even talk about the bunch of retarded fraggers he calls trine mates. Where do I even _start_! They could only frag up more than they do now if the Earth cycle had more kliks in it! And what I don't even-"_

Soundwave listened, not a single wire moving as the words washed over him relentlessly. It was his job to listen to all that was being said in Decepticon headquarters. Of course, whatever a prisoner had to say ranked much higher on his priority list than the daily nuances of the other Decepticons' lives, but it was infuriating nonetheless.

He was used to dealing with the vast amounts of -probably useless- information that was the rumor mills, rec room dialogues and whispered words in deserted corridors. He could occasionally extract from them bits of information for further use, either for blackmail, cross-referencing or simply amusing gossip to feed his cassettes.

He even enjoyed the inner chatter that flowed among his symbionts. It was relaxing to just eavesdrop on their conversations without needing to search for patterns. It was familiar.

"_-at _all_! I honestly can't remember if I've ever been more bored out of my mind. Honestly, guys, I think I can congratulate you, because you have finally made me glitch out of the pure dullness that is looking at your faces. It's like one of those human films where all the greenish guys say "braaaaains", only you are uglier. Speaking of ugly, what's bucket-head doing now, eh? I mean, I'm pretty sure he's having one of those epic evil epiphanies, probably including purple griffins and all. Damn! Did we had a laugh with that! That was a good-"_

But _this_! This meaningless constant babbling unnerved him. It was both the constant patter, grating on his nerves, and the knowledge that there was at least a tiny infinitesimal possibility that among the monstrous quantities of senseless data, the Autobot might spill something of importance. Soundwave wished desperately that he could momentarily shut down his audio receptors, but he knew that if he missed the tiniest part of it, he'd be haunted by that possibility. He got other mecha to relieve him of watching the offending Autobot, but since he asked them to hand him a recording afterwards, the annoyance was pretty much the same, only filtered through a data pad.

They had brought the Autobot in around five solar cycles ago, after the last skirmish near New York. It had been just another struggle between seekers and Protectobots, but Bluestreak had been around for some unknown reason, and a lucky stray shot from Skywarp brought part of a building down on the young bot. Laserbeak had been just as surprised at finding his unconscious frame as the Autobots had been when they realized their sharpshooter was nowhere to be found. At some point in the non-stop blabbering the Autobot had told whoever might be listening that it was the last time he detoured to the city to get personal supplies for Cliffjumper, so Soundwave assumed that that explained the random encounter. It was yet another stellar example of the wrong mech in the wrong place at the wrong time... something that in his opinion could caption half the defeats the Decepticons suffered.

"_- just as expected of a pair of scrap-for-brains. All the same, me and Sunny had quite some fun that day, though-don't take it personally-I rather enjoy not having to see Decepticreeps like you on my days off. Man, that was actually quite a vorn, once you think about it. There was that time Wheeljack managed to blow up half of Blast Off's cargo haul instead of us, the cone-heads' barrel-roll incident, that time Blot got locked in Shockwave's warehouse and we watched and pointed from outside, when the glue gun-"_

It had been an odd experience. Most apprehended Autobots either sat in defiant silence or cursed angrily to show a lack of fear, but when they got Bluestreak to online again it was something else entirely. There where insults of course, laced every couple of words, but there was also _everything else_.

He accused, whined, preached, mused and demanded. He glided through irrelevant anecdotes or epithets and slalomed between questions like a politician. Not even Megatron had expected _that_ when he had growled "Wake him up, and make him talk!"

"_-but why would they even bother looking for that station there? I mean, I am no strategist myself, but damn! That was so off the mark they were left for mega-cycles orbiting on their afts. Still, I don't think we got lucky after all. Sorry if I am offending anyone by stating something so painfully obvious, but it was a given you were gonna fail miserably on that one too. I don't think I've ever seen Astrotrain's brains at work, period. Still, there might be-"_

They had sent for Vortex, of course, but the damned slagger was still half a quartex away on some mission with the other Combaticons. The order from their leader had been that he had to be kept alive until then. Wildrider had told Drag Strip that he'd love to be there when the copter met the Autobot just to see the interrogator's face plates when he met a subject that offered willingly more information than cable TV. Soundwave had to admit he was looking forward to that moment as well, if only to find out if the torturer managed to break the mech or not. It would probably be highly... instructive, to say the least.

Soundwave, for his part, thought it would also be profitable if the Autobot remained alive afterwards, since the bot could still make a good bargaining chip if he was glitched, but not so much if he was offline. On a foot note, having a living punching bag had done wonders for crew morale, even though he still wouldn't shut up, even with every plate on his frame dented. Granted, a defiant, energetic mech was much more interesting to punish than a weakling that crumpled into a corner whimpering, but even Motormaster felt that after a while the fun wasn't worth the headache. And Motormaster had been thorough. Bluestreak's paintwork was now half gone and his plating was cracked and dented, showing in certain places rubs of other colors in easily identifiable patterns. Most of his data panels, as well as his interface covers had long ago been ripped and tossed away, along with one door wing. He was a sorry sight, and even his air cycling rattled with the loose internal components from warped vents.

"_-Pit and back. And do I know a disgusting imbecile when I see it. Even Lugnut had more brains than him, and that is saying a lot! But he did pull a good one over on Swindle, and if there is one mech even more horrid than him, it's Swindle. I don't even get how his gestalt can bear him... it must be like being bonded to a can of used oil. Not that it would matter much to them, I mean, Brawl can't be that far-"_

But still, as long as he remained conscious, he kept on talking. Even through gasps and spitted energon, the flow of words stuttered but didn't stop.

0

Bluestreak's mind was trying to analyze his situation without seizing up in fear. He noted that his energon reservoir was almost depleted, though he knew they wanted to keep him alive, so it wasn't that much of a problem. Far more preoccupying was his dropping coolant and hydraulic pressure. He really needed those to have at least a fighting chance if an opportunity to escape mystically appeared (not that he was really expecting one), and the 'Cons where clearly not going to help there.

He could tell a few solar cycles had passed, but they had blocked his internal chrono. He was a bit disoriented, and his comm systems had been disabled first thing, so he had no way of calling for help, either.

Despite his appearance, Bluestreak was quite perceptive and prone to thinking before acting, something that helped him in his role as a sniper. His usual cheerfulness wasn't a facade, but he was far from being an impulsive bot. The chatter that flowed from his lip components was only a shield that kept his inner thoughts confined to an unreachable space, and he dedicated to it only a small fragment of his processor. In truth, most of his routines run in the silence beneath.

It was discouraging for a sadist to see a victim that didn't seem to care at all what was being done to it, and Bluestreak knew that perfectly well. He had created such a distance between his processor and his speech centers that once he was in full babbling mode he could be nanokliks away from fatal system failure and still be broadcasting.

But he was really close to desperation now.

He knew the 'Cons hadn't contacted his faction. He hadn't been sure of that until a few breems ago, when one of his "caretakers" had wondered aloud, between punches and clenched denta, how much he would talk once Vortex arrived. And that single name had been enough to make his tank constrict in panic.

He continued to frequently mumble to himself even when he was alone, because it brought clarity to his thoughts, but just for once he wished he didn't have to think at all. He wasn't sure he'd be able to keep his act up with the Decepticon interrogator. If the copter managed to break his barrier of protective noise... well, nothing would stand between him and madness.

0

"I just don't get why someone hasn't ripped out his vocal processor already," Frenzy said as he fidgeted with a tiny cam array. The desk at the communications officer's workstation was littered with microchip components. The red mech wasn't paying any attention to the video that displayed a view of the cell holding the bot in question.

"Complications in acquiring intel" was the laconic answer, and the symbiont could almost swear that the sarcasm wasn't just his imagination.

Rather than clutter up his HUD, Soundwave had opted to receive this particular feed through an external screen. His cassettes had started to avoid the room after a few solar cycles of Bluestreak's incessant chattering on the screen, so Soundwave had internalized the audio stream, earning himself a wave of relief and gratitude through the quantum bond.

Now they ignored the Autobot completely. The spy master wanted to chide his symbionts for underestimating a source of information merely because it was annoying, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It was an _intensely_ annoying source.

"So what! We can just ask Hook to stick it back in him when Vortex gets here... it's not like he is saying anything worth slag..."

"Hook rarely cooperates. Frenzy, desist query."

"Fine, fine, I was just saying," said the cassette, shrugging. He eyed the screen warily and saw the slight movement of the face plates as the Autobot went on talking. He was sitting against the far wall with his hands cuffed behind his back. Frenzy could see that his optics where flickering occasionally and he was wavering imperceptibly from side to side. It was the telltale sign of mecha with severely low energon levels, and the young cassette hoped wistfully that whoever had been assigned to feed the prisoner had forgotten so the bot would offline already.

Frenzy then swung around to look at his boss and marveled on how deceptive appearances could be. He knew the bigger mech was drained and stressed out of his mind due to having to listen to that freak all day, but the exterior betrayed almost nothing as he supervised various screens, tapping away. Still, to the expert eye, his frame looked more rigid than usual and the young 'Con had noticed Soundwave becoming increasingly irritable, even towards them. Frenzy asked himself, not for the first time, if this wasn't affecting his boss more than he was letting on.

"Boss..." He trailed off, letting his worry zip gently through the bond. Soundwave ceased typing and looked at him, head slightly cocked to one side. "I think you need a bit of a rest"

The larger mech stiffened and directed his attention again to the consoles. "Soundwave, capable of functioning efficiently. No defragmentation needed yet"

"Awww, c'mon, don't get mad at me. You are gonna blow a gasket if you don't get away from that glitch for a while... Just have a quick recharge, and I'll keep an eye on him for you." The smile that punctuated the words was honest for a change, and Soundwave realized his symbiont was probably right: a quick nap would enhance his performance and mood. Also, he trusted his cassettes to crunch the data properly. He wouldn't have to review the feed afterwards if it was Frenzy overseeing it.

Soundwave looked at the cassette and nodded his helm a fraction, then patched the audio feed back into the external console. He could hear the murmured jabber returning to the room as he stood and went to his private quarters next door, where he laid down without preamble. Recharge came swiftly without him even noticing.

0

The recharge was not long enough for a deep core defragmentation but enough to defrag some sub-routines. They were mostly a sensory collage, a copy-paste of experiences and randomly-generated scenarios that popped up while his processor defragmented the files from the past couple of solar cycles. Soundwave hardly ever had any recollection of them and didn't pay any attention to them when he did, but this time was different.

His systems booted up with a start, fans whirring furiously, and it took him a full klik to realize he was cycling air through his vents in harsh pants. He felt his spark compress tightly with irrational panic, provoking an instant burst of chaos among his cassettes. This led him to do a system check to calm himself and to ping each of them to let them know nothing was wrong. Once the ruckus on the internal comm died, he sat up on the berth and began browsing urgently through the sub-routine logs

There wasn't really much to it, just random logs from sensory arrays: a fragment of an argument between Megatron and Starscream, some flashes of what he recognized as parts of his HUD during a recent battle, the distant noise of an unidentified cetacean beyond the building's walls. The last entry was simply a recording from his external audio sensors of the last couple of kliks before he had powered down. He felt the energon roil in his tank.

He opened the whole sequence of the last file that had been cropped and placed in the sub-routine. There was his exchange with Frenzy, then the soft burst of the Autobot's chatter as he returned the audio feeds to the consoles, the bass-pitched thumping of his pedes as he made his way to his current location, some shifting as he laid in the berth, and nothing else. The recoding stretched on a little while after he went into recharge, and he found with unease that it perturbed him greatly.

He couldn't quite explain why (something that greatly increased his anxiety), but those instants after the last sound threatened to kick his fans on again.

The recording was so low pitched it could have translated as white noise to the sensors, but Soundwave recognized the subtle purr of his own engines and the clicks and taps of automatic realignments, along with the almost imperceptible gurgle of his vital fluids. It wasn't empty quiet, but rather filled with the little sounds a living organism produces when it's idle. It was a living silence.

The objective of analyzing what he had experienced had been to calm him, but it did nothing of the sort. Soundwave felt his restlessness increase exponentially. He clamped down hard on the bond, not wanting to disturb his symbionts once again, and stood up to return to his post.

He wasn't about to let irrational emotions take ahold of him like a youngling. He assured himself that whatever had happened to him was of little consequence. It was most likely a sensory driver bug or a conflicting redundancy that would be purged away in his next full core defragmentation. Unless it prevented him from performing his duties on schedule he wasn't about to pay it any more attention than it was worth, which was none.

Soundwave returned to his workstation with tension still gripping his frame. Ravage had arrived while he had been recharging. He had made himself comfortable on a couch and slipped into recharge himself. Frenzy was still monitoring the screens. The other symbionts where still out working, and Soundwave could feel them pinging back in acknowledgment when he prodded the bond in their direction.

There was the ever-present murmuring coming from the cam showing the Autobot prisoner and the warm and tingly smell of a mid-grade cube by Frenzy's hand. The light was dimmed, and Soundwave could see a sliver of the ocean floor through the narrow window on the opposite wall.

It was a normal and utterly familiar scene, and as he took it in, his worry evaporated just as swiftly as it had arrived. He let his pleasure at this fact brush the edges of the bond. The red cassette glanced up for a second with a small smile, content with the improvement in his mood, even though he didn't quite get what had caused it. Frenzy jumped up from the chair and returned to his work at the table.

Soundwave wordlessly relieved him at the multi-screened consoles and told himself it must have been the grounding effect of his bond that had cleared his thoughts. His trusted cassettes had unknowingly pulled him out of his dark musings merely with their presence in the room. It had to have been that.

It most certainly hadn't been that eternally annoying background noise that scorched his audio feeds.

Of course not.

0

* * *

><p>As it seems to be the case with a lot of people, FFNet is giving me tons of formatting headache. The paragraphs are supposed to be fragmented differently but I just can't seem to be able to make it right =_=<p>

If you rather read the competently spaced version, it will be posted in my LJ and AO3 account.

Well, that's it for now. Crit and reviews are always appreciated =3

Shibara


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 02

0

Solar cycles had gone by, and Bluestreak had the bizarre feeling that time had stopped. He was seriously starting to think he was not going to get out of there alive, and the knowledge filled him with a strange sadness rather than fear. His teammates would be less protected without him covering for them, and the deaths of those who fell because he wasn't there would be on him and his stupid carelessness. 'If only' danced through his mind and he wished he had something to do just to avoid dealing with them. He wouldn't even have minded forced labor over the dullness of his cycles in the brig.

Just as the realization of how irrational that last thought was hit his processor, he heard the distant chime of the cell block door opening. His containment unit was deep in the mass of corridors so he couldn't see who had come in yet, but he could hear the distant rhythmic pounding of heavy pedes as they made their way along the cell-lined passages, homing on to his location.

His frame tensed. He still had a way to go before he needed more energon, and the only times mecha came his way were for refueling or anger management sessions, as he preferred to dub them in his processor. But as the thumping approached, he recognized the third rare option that had popped up recently.

And yes, indeed, there was the strange 'con.

Bluestreak watched, for the eighth time now, as Soundwave came into view. The large mech padded closer, unhurried, until he was exactly in front of the cell -in front of Bluestreak- and stood there, saying nothing. It had been exactly like that the previous visits, and it creeped the Autobot out.

The first time, Bluestreak had figured he was going to get thoroughly hacked. The communications officer's skills at pounding firewalls into oblivion was legendary, and the notion had become even more solid when one of the data ports in his chassis' side slid open and a slender probe uncurled itself, angling towards the trembling and noisy bot. Then it stopped moving a few feet away from Bluestreak's face and had hung there in the air.

This had made the Autobot stutter in surprise for an astrosecond, skipping a word of the amazing recounting he had been giving of a small 'bot/'con conflict that had occurred half a vorn ago on Kyron. A couple of kliks went by and then, for some reason beyond the smaller mech's grasp, the feeler retracted and Soundwave went away without a single word.

The other seven times had been pretty much the same, sans evil looking probe: just the masked face looking at him without twitching a piston for a few moments before disappearing.

It was truly disquieting, but somehow, Bluestreak found he welcomed those moments. They meant  
>some kind of distraction from the ever present dullness, and at least they didn't involve large amounts of pain or humiliation.<p>

After the third visit, boredom was threatening to overtake fear again, so Bluestreak decided to do a little experiment: each time Soundwave strolled over, he'd pick an entirely different topic to talk about.

He had gone over war experiences and memorable places in Praxus, his hometown; he had dissertated on human comic books (and he had planned to go into Nebulan comics too, but at that point he'd been alone); and had given his thoughts on the advantages of liquid versus paste car polish. Of course, everything was marinated in insults and offensive comments aimed at his enemy's faction, but that was just standard procedure.

He wasn't even completely sure why he did it.

If he had been asked, he would have said that it was boring to talk every time about the same things with the same listener, but, in truth, he had to admit to himself that he was hoping to get something from the stone-faced 'con. He wasn't sure what... maybe a reaction, or some kind of answer. Anything, really, would have been fine if it meant the mech in front of him would betray the smallest bit of information. Something that told him why the visits happened and what they meant.

Bluestreak had hoped that he'd be able to irk the mech into doing something: an uncomfortable shift with the nostalgic memories of Cybertron? Maybe a shudder of disgust at the mention of the squishies' culture that Decepticons seemed to hate so much? Perhaps a wistful dim of the optics at the mention of relaxing times?

But none of that happened. The mech seemed made of concrete. Concrete and silence.

And Bluestreak had absolutely no idea of what lay beyond it.

0

The cassettes where agitated.

At one time or another, each of them had managed to hide things from Soundwave for short periods. They had hidden something quite complicated at the best of times, but they had never outright gone behind his back especially not while cooperating with each other. In a way it was reassuring, because if they screwed up they where all going down together, but Laserbeak (who had somewhat initiated the whole thing) kept telling them that as long as they where all monitoring their host properly and blocking the bond tight, he wouldn't notice his cassettes where gathering without his knowledge.

They had decided to do it in alt-mode inside a maintenance closet. It was hidden from the base's cameras and Soundwave wouldn't awake from forced recharge for another half joor or so.

.:So...:.

Rumble broke the silence .:What the slag is going on with boss-bot?:.

.:I don't get it either, bro. He's been acting... strange.:.

.:Yeah! Fragging angry an' twitchy all the time!:.

.:Think he might be infected with a virus?:. Ravage's words where cold and precise. They where all wary of Ravage, even when he was tape-shaped. .:If his core files are getting corrupted it might infect us as-:.

.:Oh, shut up! Soundwave's been poking his cables in mainframes since before your model was on beta  
>testing! How in Unicron's name would he get a virus now... he's been crunching data at base for the last couple of quartex.:.<p>

.:Ratbat, you do know we have mecha stupid enough to be virus-ridden inside the base, don't you?:. Buzzsaw spoke for the first time, and the tone suggested a smirk would be lurking on his face if he'd had one on display.

.:Hmmph, I'm just saying I don't think it's a virus.:.

.:I think you are just scared you might get your processor glitched too if it is. It's called denial:.

Laserbeak interrupted the bickering with a high pitched burst of static.

.:Stop it! Whatever it is, it's going to come back and bite us in the aft. If the boss is fragged odds are we are all gonna get slagged as well.:.

.:*Sigh* You are right... Well, let's get down to the facts: do we know when it started?:.

.:It was definitely after the last seeker frag up. I remember me 'n Frenzy came back and they were all in sick bay, so we painted their optics black while they where recharging. They thought they had all gone blind and flailed everywhere. Soundwave had been royally pissed that we almost got caught, but he had also been... I dunno, amused? I don't think I've felt him right again after that.:.

.:Hahaha, yeah, that was good...:.

.:Focus, for Primus' sake! I'd hardly call that a precise time frame to work with.:.

.:Well, what the frag do you expect? It's not like he comes to visit with a cube of high-grade to chat about his Primus-damned issues! And he's been clamping down on the bond so much it's fraggin' hard to tell what he's been doing half the time!:.

.:Yeah! How long since that... half a quartex? Two thirds? Haven't you felt like the slag began piling up since then... sorta?:.

Ravage rumbled in thought .:Hmmm, the glitch-brothers might be right...:.

.:Hey!:.

.:Well, that gives us at least something. I was doing recon in that fight but I didn't see anything weird. Perhaps afterwards?:.

.:Like when, Laserbeak? He hasn't done much besides the usual surveillance. Also, he's been isolating himself, so maybe he had been doing it before and we just didn't notice. The estimate is useless!:.

.:Well, I am not surprised you didn't notice, you flying piece of organic waste, because while you where half across the mud-ball sniffing fuel, we were here cooped up with him!:.

Ratbat snorted. .:Oh, please! It can't have been that bad-:.

.:Yeah! That bad! The last few solar cycles it got worse. Primus! I don't think he's even noticed how much is seeping through the bond when he's not actively sitting on it.:.

.:And he's been more than twenty joors on duty without more than a dozen of breems of recharge...:. Laserbeak sounded tired.

Ratbat realized they all did, and he started to wonder if there might actually be something he had missed. .:Seriously? I thought it was just his attitude going down the exhaust... I mean I did get some weird flashes last solar-cycle, but-:.

.:You didn't get the freak-outs?:.

.:The WHAT?:.

.:He's been having defrag sub-routines slagging his recharge cycles. Last one he booted up with battle routines engaged and everything... Pit, it woke me up, and I thought the base was under attack! HE PUNCHED THE SLAGGIN' WALL!:.

.:Primus...:.

They all became silent after that.

.:I think... I think it has something to do with the 'bot in the brig.:.

They all shifted their attention to Frenzy.

.:It's been driving him mad with the talking, and-:.

.:Frenzy, think for once in your slagged life. If every damn Autobot we captured made Soundwave freak out we would be covered in-:.

.:IT'S NOT THE FRAGGING SAME AND STOP INSULTING ME YOU PIECE OF SCRAP OR I'LL GRAB YOUR WINGS AND STICK THEM UP YOUR EXHAUST PIPE WITHOUT CUTTING THEM OFF FIRST:.

.:Come on guys, don't start now. Frenzy, Ratbat has a point. Boss has been monitoring Autoslag for vorns, and I don't see how the scrap-heap could be doing anything to him from his cell.:.

Frenzy grumbled, chewing the words. .:But he's never been that angry at a 'bot before! I mean, he never cared about them! This one, I think he truly hates him...:.

.:There isn't a single mech in the base that has listened to his jabbering for five minutes and doesn't hate him:.

.:Fine!... it was just an idea, after all...:.

They all sagged in their places, bouncing the uneasiness and worry between them. Whatever was happening to their host was in turn getting to them as well.

No one could think of a logical explanation for what was going on.

0

Soundwave felt he was an astrosecond away from losing his mind.

It wasn't the fits of terror that woke him from recharge or the occasional loss of control over his battle routines. It wasn't even the irrational urges to tear at things with his servos, nor the self-imposed isolation from his symbionts.

It was the fact that he couldn't figure out what it was that the Autobot was doing to him.

And he knew it was the slagged 'bot.

At first he thought it had started too long after the mech's capure to be related, but, on reflection, he could see the early signs: the mild irritation that escalated quickly, the steadily shorter recharge periods, the ill feelings out of nowhere... They had all began practically at the same time the Autobot had reached the  
>base.<p>

He wondered if it wasn't some kind of new weapon. Yes, perhaps the damned mech had been ordered to get himself captured to test it out. Maybe- maybe something the early scanners hadn't detected... some kind of device, too small to be detected or even integrated to his internals...frag! It could be ANYTHING!

His fans kicked in for the third time that morning as anger-coated paranoia overwhelmed him. He cycled air hard through his vents to cool down.

No, that would have been hardly an Autobot thing to do, he thought, as he tried to relax.

He was alone in his room at the moment. He had been trying for some forced recharge time on his berth but it hadn't even lasted enough to have half his core defragmented.

Misery and fear washed over him in dark waves, and he tried frantically to keep it from oozing into the bond. He assumed his cassettes hadn't detected yet his unbalanced mental state, but holding back was getting harder each time, and the fact that his survival depended on his ability to hold the facade didn't help much. He was the third-in-command, and any hint of weakness would be seized upon as an opportunity to get him demoted (or worse, deactivated) by those who aimed to rise to the top brass themselves. And by Starscream, too, who was technically his superior, but was still one resentful, pit-spawned fragger.

As an added stress factor, Soundwave was pretty sure that once the damned Autobot went through Vortex's tender mercies it would be much harder to get any intelligible information from him. If what Soundwave was going through was being caused by the slagging mech, then any way to reverse it would be gone with the 'bot's sanity. In only a few more solar cycles Vortex would be on Earth and that would be it for his source of information.

Soundwave was trying to investigate the matter, but it was terribly difficult this time, even for him. He had entertained the thought of hacking the 'bot to the Pit and back, but he couldn't risk the traces it would leave. As much as he knew he had the technicalities covered, Vortex got annoyed when his toys' minds were tampered with before he got to play with them, so there was an implicit 'no fragging with the processors' rule in effect whenever a captured mech had an appointment with the copter. Soundwave had no doubt the interrogator wouldn't be able to trace it back to him code-wise, but he'd know someone had hacked his victim, and the slag-for-brains Autobot would spill in a blink who had done it if Vortex  
>decided he wanted to know. As much as he hated to admit it, the Combaticon was pretty close to the top of Soundwave's not-to-be-fragged-with list.<p>

So, removing plugging from the equation, he had tried to gather what he could through observation.

Soundwave's sensory net was patched to the surveillance network so he could see and hear the Autobot perfectly from the cameras in the brig.  
>He had also used a relay node for his telepathic mods when they had brought him in, which he had to always monitor personally since there wasn't any other mech who could decode the information.<br>The relay acted as a secondary receptor unit, simple but extremely sensitive, attached to the interior of the Autobot's helm base that recorded the electric patterns generated by the main processor and bounced them back to Soundwave's HUD.

The constant telepathic surveillance had shown peculiar- if not useful- data regarding his current prisoner.

In Soundwave's experiece, when a captive talked constantly their thought patterns worked always in the same way: Most babbling happened when mecha tried to avoid thinking of their situation or to mask their reactions in some way.  
>This usually meant they were purposefully focusing hard on what they were saying in an attempt to ignore what was going on around them.<br>For example, when Soundwave heard from a prisoner "You sick fragger! When I get out of here I swear I will shove your thrusters up your exhaust pipe" his telepathy mod registered that same thought, and also a chain of adjacent information: 'When-I-get-out-of-here-I-swear-I-will-shove-your-thrusters-up-your-exhaust-pipe / I-hate-you / feeling:anger / need-to-inflict-pain / Prime-probably-would-disapprove / feeling:shame' etc.

The way Soundwave perceived it, Bluestreak's speech didn't work like that. The younger mech didn't really think about what he was saying, or more accurately, about each part of what he was saying.  
>Bluestreak had a constant stream of thoughts that did match what he was saying, but the analysis of the information was pretty much non-existent. He retrieved information to cross-reference it and retrieve more data easily, not because he actually thought about it. Even emotional data attached to the files seemed to act as just another set of coordinates that linked to more data, instead of clashing with his current state of mind.<br>His thought pattern for the same speech example would have looked like this: 'When-I-get-out-of-here-I-swear-I-will-shove-your-thrusters-up-your-exhaust-pipe / Ironide-did-this-once-to-Swindle / feeling:amusement / Red-Alert-chasing-Laserbeak-with-a-fly-swatter-was-amusing / Flies-are-so-small / Hound-doesn't-seem-to-mind-flies '

To Soundwave disappointment, though, this difference only applied to speech-related processes.

The carrier mech had hoped that Bluestreak would eventually turn his mind to something that would throw some light on what he was doing to Soundwave, but besides his bizarre way of feeding his vocalizer, the sniper's mind was pretty much the same as the average prisoner's: fleeting thoughts and feelings of loneliness, fear and worry.

His observation from the workstation had provided nothing to his investigation, and there was no logical reason why he would be able to obtain more information by being in the presence of the 'bot, but still...

When he stood before the battered Autobot... there was something.

He could tell that that thing -that byte-sized piece of knowledge- lay just beyond his mind's reach, hoovering so close but still incomprehensible.

Whatever it was, it came into focus when he was in front of the containment field, listening to the endless prattle. During those precious minutes when he managed to cloak his presence to the security of the base, he could almost understand the hell he was living in.

When he left, he lost it. He became terrified and completely sure that he would go insane way before he'd manage to make sense of the maelstrom he had been thrown into. And then fear morphed into anger.

It was an all-consuming wrath stemming from the pride he held in his analytical mind and the outrage of knowing that someone was tampering with it. The precious, effective, and destructive weapon that was his psyche was all he had, and knowing it was being dulled was enough to make him want to tear at his own plating in rage.

Still, that left him with one pure and clear thought, in the coldness of his berth: when it was over -when he found out what it was, and he got rid of it- he'd make the babbling mech suffer so much that by the time he was done the 'bot would open his chest plates and beg him to snuff his spark.

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	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 03

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.:We are so gonna get slagged for this...:.

A hiss of angry static rasped through Frenzy's comm. .:If you don't calm down, you most definitely will. Now keep your optics open for anything or our efforts will have been for nothing, and I will not bother to save your plating from the 'bots.:.

The red cassette was stationed at a vantage point a few hundred mechanometers from the Ark, and he was watching as Rumble edged closer and closer to the fallen ship. The path was erratic but careful and it had been traced especially for this occasion. It was a one-time hack to the Ark's defenses and so precise it only halted each sensor feed for a few astroseconds, so it had to be perfect or the automatic defenses would fry Rumble on the spot.

Behind the small outcrop where he was hiding, Frenzy tensed sharply as his brother made the last few meters and then sighed in relief when the little blue shape crouched by the wall. Rumble worked furiously on a side panel from the exterior of the ship until it opened and slid inside.

.:Good:. Was all that Ravage said on the other side of the comm link. They fell silent, -waiting for Rumble's call.

0

Ratchet was working in the sickbay. That could have summed up his private diary as much as his job description.

That morning he had been repairing an ankle twist from Hound, who had caught his foot on a small rock, denting the gears a little. He had then performed routine maintenance sessions with a couple of Aerialbots. Afterwards he had thrown some nagging at Ironhide for not taking proper care of recent wounds (and then proceeded to weld a few back together). At noon he had spent exactly ten kliks in the rec room before he had to tend to yet another explosion-induced burn in Wheeljack's chassis, and after all that, since he already was at his workstation, he had gotten to the task of repairing a few spare parts that could eventually come in handy.

He was perpetually busy. That never changed, whether they were under heavy fire or in a more peaceful period.

The past cycles had felt like the latter, but the quietness in the base was tinged with worry. They had lost a warrior somewhere, and no one was in a mood to enjoy the tranquility.

The Lamborghini twins were particularly restless, since they had been somewhat close to the bot, and a few incidents had gone really badly. One of them had been an overcharged Cliffjumper full of guilt colliding with an even more overcharged Sunstreaker. Every word the golden mech said was usually laced with venom but much more so after the absence of the chattering Datsun. What started as bitter exchanges evolved into slurred insults and eventually into a fist fight that landed them both, Bumblebee, Sideswipe and Prowl into the sickbay (the three latter having tried to separate them without much success).

As the days went by, Ratchet saw a deep gloom descend upon the Ark, and he couldn't help but feel a bit hopeless at the complete lack of news. After some digging they found out where Bluestreak had been last seen and assumed he had been close to the fight, but they hadn't even found a fragment of armor at the scene. He was just... missing.

To the medic, and to many other mecha, the whole scenario spelled bad news. After almost ten solar cycles plans were being made for a rescue mission. That he was a captive was almost a certainty.

While he was repairing spare coolant pumps, Ratchet glanced bitterly at one of the berths behind a translucent wall panel. It was occupied by a blue mech that was in deep recharge. Part of his chassis was missing, and the two left limbs were heavily patched with medi-gel and fragments of metallic mesh.

'Of all times, now.' He thought angrily.

Mirage would have made both the search _and_ rescue of Bluestreak ten times easier, but he had been injured badly in an accident.

It hadn't even been a Decepticon attack, just humans being stupid towards each other and waving firearms close to gas stations. Mirage had been called since he was doing some recon close by, and at the time it had been just a robbery. No one had thought it a dangerous situation, at least not for a mech... but experience had proved them wrong.

The doctor narrowed his optics in frustration, thinking how much humans could be moved by greed... just like Cybertronians themselves. Many things were different between their species, but violence, theft, betrayal... those where universal.

His dark musing almost made him miss the ping of an incoming transmission to the sickbay console.

He assumed it was going to be either Prime with an official communication of some sort or Prowl, who sometimes was formal like that. Pretty much everyone else just used his private frequency.

"Make _one_ move Autoslag, and you can kiss your retarded sniper's aft goodbye."

His optics widened at the blurry face-plates in the screen and his processor froze as the last words sunk in.

"Good. Now that I have your attention, I have a proposition for you."

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Vortex hated long distance flights. They made him fidgety.

He had been cooped up in Blast Off´s cargo bay for cycles, and he was bored out of his mind. He had exhausted every entertainment option there was.

Jabbing Brawl in the helmet and practicing his dodging worked for a while (and it had the added fun of someone straightening his rotor blades afterwards). But the thought that if he stopped punching, Vortex would stop poking reached Brawl's processor at some point and it stopped being fun.

Grinding his heels on the floor also provided interesting annoying-Blast Off time, pretty much like tapping random rhythms on the bulkheads or letting his vocalizer beep haphazardly, but that also eventually ended in Onslaught being harassed into intervention by the shuttle. That led to annoying-Onslaught time, but that was generally a very, _very_ short period of time.

It ended with him being attended by medical drones and isolation, which was no fun at all.

He was about to start poking Swindle with the back of a laser-scalpel, just for a change, when the voice of their living transport sounded briskly through the speakers.

"We are approaching planetary orbit. Landing ETA in 2.3 joors"

A happy smile lit Vortex's face as he subspaced the tool with a flourish and whooped.

He was _so_ looking forward to having new things to poke at.

0

Ratchet's mind was racing like a glitchmouse in a treadmill.

He had transferred the conversation to his personal quarters' terminal, per his interlocutor's demands, but he had managed to send a single ping to Red Alert before leaving the sickbay console. Paranoia would be on his side, he hoped.

Rumble had also warned him about using his internal comm. Ratchet had tried anyway but found out it was being blocked.

At the moment, he was trying to force himself not to snap in anger at the vagueness of the conversation.

"What do you mean 'particular request'?"

"Particular, as in not sanctioned by the bigger boss, Autoglitch."

"So let me get this straight: Soundwave wants me to meet him, alone, _just to talk_, and he'll release Bluestreak... without Megatron knowing about it?"

"Yep, exactly that."

"You _do_ notice how that is slagging suspicious, don't you?"

"You _do_ notice how I don't give a scrap about it being suspicious or not, don't you? It's simple: you come, you get the bot; you don't come, you don't get nothing. Oh, by the way, did I mention his appointment with Vortex is coming up? His processor's gonna be a decorative paper-weight after that".

The dark chuckle that followed made the medic shake with rage, but his tanks also constricted at those words. He thought of Bluestreak and how much his mind was already scarred by his past... the idea of him being in Vortex's servos made his ventilation hitch.

"Fine! Let me clear this wi-"

"Hey-hey, stop that process right there. You tell this to no one. You come alone and you come right now, or there's no deal." Rumble sounded decidedly anxious and Ratchet noticed his head swayed a bit from side to side.

It had been doing that since the beginning but suddenly he realized the movement was because the cassette was moving fast, and the broadcasting device was probably held before him with a servo. The background of the staticky image was dark and almost indistinguishable but sometimes there were flickers and strips of light... reflections of more illuminated rooms?.

Why would the little mech be talking while running through dark corridors? Why broadcasting with external hardware?

He proceeded to argue the complications of leaving the Ark without reporting to anyone with half his processor while he tried to understand. Soundwave supposedly (at least by what intel they had on him) was in charge of supervising communications in the Decepticon base. Why on Earth would he resort to this kind of communication method? If he wanted to keep this from Megatron, wasn't it simpler to scramble the signal or something?

Having a cassette broadcasting a conversation while running around corridors -ducts! not corridors! The mech was too small to have the walls so close and the lights were from the rooms the duct circulated through, so ventilation ducts!- a much more risky move?

If he was in the Decepticon base all he had to do was lock himself in a room and- His train of thought halted abruptly.

He had heard an extremely faint laugh coming from the transmission, almost drowned by Rumble's and his conversation. It had sounded very far away, but he would have recognized it anywhere: No 'bot laughed quite like Jazz did.

Suddenly he had a very good idea why Rumble was running through air ducts.

A short-wave transmission device wouldn't rise any alarm if it generated its signals inside the Ark itself. It was assumed that mecha pinged each other all the time, listened to the radio, used their consoles for packet transfer- Primus! The symbiote could be using a barely altered walkie-talkie for that matter.

The medic staggered at the implications and could almost visualize the glitch Red Alert would have as soon as this got out.

He also realized that he had been asked something and the cassette was getting increasingly nervous by his distraction.

"Are you listening? Am I fragging _boring_ you?"

"Just- no, fine. I'll meet your boss. Give me the coordinates."

The thought of one of the spy twins running around the Ark was disquieting to say the least, but it was far more worrying that the scraplet was putting himself in this level of danger just to transmit this message to him. He assumed that either something was extremely wrong with Soundwave, something so bad the mech didn't even trust Hook to solve it (who, he had to grudgingly admit, was quite competent in his job), or this was the most complex and suicidal scam he had ever heard of.

If they were aiming to lure him away from his HQ just to capture him, they could have done so from a far safer distance.

Rumble told him a location half a joor's drive away and promptly ended the transmission.

Ratchet returned to the sickbay and subspaced a number of things, including a full med-kit and an extra gun.

He still didn't understand what the frag was going on or what he was going to find when he met the Decepticon TiC, but he was damn well gonna be armed when he did.

0

Red Alert was always, not quite ironically, alert.

He looked at everything and watched everyone. The halls and corridors, the rec room, the shooting range... he was still hoping that someday Prime would finally let him install cameras in personal quarters. He just didn't comprehend why no one understood the necessity and the DANGERS of not being able to watch everywhere.

After he checked for the umpteenth time the signal of the Lambo twins while they were engaged in potentially pranking rec time, a ping from the sickbay hailed him.

When he answered, there was no response, though, and the monitor from the room in question showed it was completely empty, save for Mirage's still form.

Red Alert frowned slightly and rewound the security feed of the room a few kliks, his optics narrowing with suspicion.

The scene was rather normal; it was just Ratchet working, then talking to someone in the console and leaving. The image input signal was normal, but all sound was gone.

Perhaps the sensor had been damaged? The ping had come right before the medic turned off the console.

The Security Director proceeded to follow Ratchet's path through other security feeds and couldn't help but think the cranky mech's scowl looked tighter than usual. Red Alert eventually followed him to his personal quarters where he stood now.

He pinged the medic, half planning the lecture he was going to give on wasting the resources of the security department, but after a few kliks of waiting the medic wouldn't answer his calls. The uneasiness he had started to feel when he noticed the odd video started blooming in outright worry, and he resolved to go talk to the mech himself.

As he padded quickly through the corridors, he got tired of sending polite "please contact me" pings and hailed Ratchet directly on his personal frequency. Red Alert found it blocked.

0

"Prime, we have a situation!"

Optimus put down the datapad he was reading in his office and a sigh escaped his vents.

"What is it, Red Alert?"

He had said that same phrase so many times that it had became an oddly comforting routine, like wishing 'good morning' to the mecha he saw at the beginning of the day. Even so, he answered every time with the same interest and always paid attention to what the smaller 'bot had to say. No matter what the situation was each time, he had never dismissed his security chief's worry, and he wasn't about to start now. He also felt a small pang of pity each time he heard "We have a situations", and wished there was something he could do to make his officer's life a bit less stressful.

"I received a call from the sickbay sent by Ratchet after talking with some unknown mech in his console. He was blocking the screen with his frame... that camera needs a new placement, by the way. Immediately after sending they call, Ratchet went to his quarters and refuses to answer my comms. Also, I think the security feed from the sickbay has been tampered with, since the audio is not working properly. I suspect Ratchet might in some kind of trouble. He was frowning deeply when he went to his personal quarters."

"Hmmm, our CMO tends to frown quite a lot, Red Alert," rumbled the Prime before he could stop himself. He knew it would probably irritate the mech, but it was nothing if not the truth.

"I'm serious, Optimus. I don't know what's going on, but it's not normal for Ratchet to avoid answering his comm. I am going to check on him as we speak"

"Well, you are right in that his behavior is somewhat odd."

A few kliks passed while Red Alert made his way through the ship, and Optimus waited patiently behind his desk. The channel remained open, so he heard as the red and white mech knocked a few times on the medic's door, and after some moments he heard a staticky gasp.

"He's not here anymore!"

"He left his quarters? Perhaps he returned to the sickbay to-"

"No, he's not in the Ark! He wasn't opening his door, so I asked Teletraan for his location, and he said Ratchet left the ship less than five kliks ago."

Optimus decided that _that_ was more than 'somewhat odd', specially for a mech like Ratchet who didn't get out pretty much at all. He pinged his CMO himself. He didn't get an answer, either, so he filed an urgent request to the Ark's computer as well, asking for the remote location of Ratchet's signal.

The Prime's optics widened in surprise when the soft voice from the speakers informed him that the medic's signature could not be tracked.

0

Frenzy punched his brother in the shoulder when it was in reach.

"Ow, what the frag!"

"That was damn good! That spot near the top still not secured?"

"No, 's not, you walking glitch." Rumble punctuated his answer with a slap of his own, which was followed by a swift exchange of kicks, punches, and general relief-induced violence. They ended up panting in the dirt.

.:How's the rest going? Beak?:.

.:Following the ambulance. I'm already blocking several search processes and incoming transmissions. The Autobots are looking for this slagging medic already, Rumble! He was not supposed to contact them.:.

.:He didn't! I was there with the comm scrambling stuffs 'n all!:.

.:He warned them somehow.:. A soft static burst, the cassette equivalent of a huff. .:I started the scrambling before he headed to the rendezvous point, so they are going to have a hard time tracking him anyways:.

.:What about that dirt sniffing slag-for-chips? The green one:.

.:He might be able to follow the trail, but he's going to have a Pit of a hard time when I activate the decoys:.

.:Cleeevaaaaaah, birdbrain!:. they both chorused.

.:Not even going to answer to that. How are the others doing?:.

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It would not have been correct to say that Ravage was terrified, because that just didn't happen. Somehow, though, it was happening right now.

He glanced at the mech walking at his side towards the nearest exit hatch. The red visor was dim and flickering slightly. The gait was firm, but the cybercat saw Soundwave stumble a few times out of the corner of his optics. The exhaustion was visible in every stiff joint and in every hermetically clamped seam.

Ravage had never seen Soundwave look so bad without being in the sickbay, and even then at least there was the reassuring knowledge that the damage was physical and fixable.

Now though, Ravage knew his boss' processor was probably just as bad as his external systems.

When Ratbat and himself had tackled this part of the plan, they realized they would have to spin a very elaborate tale. Making Soundwave leave the base would need every ounce of their creativity and planning hability.

They had purposely broken long-distant signal boosters and took every pain they could to make it look like an Autobot sabotage. They had made aged tracks and left semi-hidden 'bot signatures through the autonomous net of the compound. They had even made sure the hardware malfunction was in one of the bigger mechanisms that required a larger mech to fix, not a cassette.

Ravage and Ratbat knew that only very particular circumstances would make their carrier leave the Decepticon HQ when he had works in progress inside. They knew that Soundwave would not take any kind of support other than his cassettes, but the reason HAD to be very good.

That was why Ratbat and Ravage had taken this task together: Ratbat's efficiency and precise thinking would take care of every aspect of the story, and then he would hand it to Ravage. Ravage, whose loyalty had never wavered, even for a second, would make the tale far easier to sell. The cybercat had been disgusted by the idea, but he had understood the lie had a higher purpose.

Then he had gone to Soundwave.

He had appeared from the shadows by the door of the workstation and politely pinged his boss. Soundwave had spun slowly in his seat and looked at him, and Ravage had been able to feel that seething rage that was filling the spark of the bigger mech. Of his carrier. It was quickly gone when Soundwave cut off his side of the bond, but it was enough for the smaller mech to shiver in place.

Ravage had managed to keep his troubled state of mind from his vocalizer when he spoke. Cold and precise, he unfolded the lie without ever breaking optic contact.

The dismay and fear came flooding back when Soundwave got up. Not fear for his life -Ravage doubted Soundwave would hurt him, and even if the blue mech had tried to, he was way faster and would have fled- but for Soundwave himself.

Soundwave hadn't asked anything.

Of the thousands of small details and explanations the two symbiotes had been sure they would have to address, Soundwave had asked nothing. No discussion of Autobots positioned in the area, no demands for aerial surveillance, no inquiry as to why maintenance hadn't been requested sooner. Nothing.

He had just heard Ravage and got up, ready to leave.

Soundwave had never gone into any situation without looking at it from many, many angles, and even then, he would do so carefully, detailing every step.

Now he was just following his own cassettes wherever they told him to go and nothing more.

This was what had terrified Ravage.

He hoped desperately that the plan would work.

0

.:Everyone is in position? Ratbat?:.

.:Everything's fine in the cameras, and the cat has already left with Soundwave.:.

.:Buzzsaw?:.

.:Dirge just left the Autobot alone two kliks ago. The conehead didn't see me, of course:. Buzzsaw said and he chuckled when he saw the sniper huddle a little more under his gaze. .:Hmmm, I don't think the little 'bot likes me much:.

.:Oh don't worry birdbrain, we don't like you either:. Both twins' nervous laughter echoed through the bond. They were amusing themselves to avoid thinking of what was going on.

.:Ravage, how are you doing with the schedule? Did he-?:.

.:Fine!:. The cybercat snapped. .:Just make sure the Autobot is there when we arrive:. He hesitated, something hardly ever seen in Ravage. .:Rumble and Frenzy, too. Laserbeak, this will probably get messy.:.

0


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 04

0

Ratchet had been driving as fast as his alt-mode could take him the second he left the Ark's security perimeter. He had tried to communicate once he'd been on the road, but his internal comm was still being jammed. The medic assumed this had something to do with Laserbeak flying high above his roof.

Ratchet's anxiety increased as he neared the coordinates Rumble had given him.

He tried to keep focused, telling himself over and over again that this was the only way he could help Bluestreak and that Rumble had left him no choice. Even so, part of him couldn't help thinking he must have been glitched to think he'd actually be able to do anything if the cassette was lying and all this was a set-up.

Ratched sighed, and the sound was lost in the whirlwind of dust that trailed after him. The Autobot CMO knew he had acted hurriedly, out of instinct, but right now there was nowhere to go but forward.

He pressed on as hard as he could and realized he was less than five kliks away from his destination.

0

The mass of buildings looked like an abandoned storage compound of some sort, left to rot in a forgotten wood. It consisted of two large buildings of seven storeys each and half a dozen large sheds. There were containers stacked up haphazardly and a few half-dismantled trucks rusting gently under thick layers of grime and moss.

As Ratchet slowed to a halt next to the outer fence, he thought for a second he was in the wrong place.

No matter how wonderfully camouflaged it looked, it wasn't a good place for a hideout. The infrastructure looked too fragile to be defensible, and the humidity of the whole area was so bothersome that after two kliks his environmental scanners started providing unwanted information regarding corrosion rates.

It also lacked Decepticon style, the medic thought. When Decepticons took abandoned (sometimes "cleared" was a more correct term) human-made structures, they were usually large concrete and iron constructions." This place had moss and vines everywhere. There was even a small tree protruding from the roof of one of the trucks and grass was growing through the concrete of the parking yard's floor. It was a place extremely at odds with the classic Decepticon disgust for organic life.

Ratchet stepped beyond the cluttered yard trying to make as little noise as possible. As he made his way towards the buildings, his sensors were dialled to their highest sensitivity. The mech tried to catch the faintest hint of either Decepticons or Bluestreak, but the only sounds where the murmur of small animals going about their daily business.

He was startled by the sudden whoosh of air and flapping wings as Laserbeak descended fast, right before him. The cassette perched on the ledge above one of the building's front doors and looked at him. Ratchet stared back at the little mech, every strut of his body tensing for the possible confrontation.

After a few seconds, the spy jumped into the air and entered the building, glancing briefly at the Autobot behind him.

"So I have a damn tour guide." Ratchet murmured. Charming.

0

To the medic's surprise, the interior was not what he had expected. The exterior hadn't been touched, but the rest of the structure had clearly been rebuilt to more cybertronian standards. On the inside, the building had only four stories.

The cassette had led him to the open second floor and promptly disappeared. This floor was occupied by large structures that looked like computer servers to the 'bot and here and there there were terminals with multiple monitors each. All the screens were black but Ratchet could feel the low vibrations of working hardware.

The white mech walked through the maze of metal blocks, scowling with nervousness. He couldn't see above most of them, and that made him feel extremely vulnerable. Taking his gun out of subspace, he walked around cautiously until he turned a corner and reached an open space.

It seemed the machines covered only the frontal half of the floor. The other half was empty, except for a bunch of metal crates, a single computer terminal, and Laserbeak, who was plugged into it. On the opposite wall there were large concrete stairs leading up to the next floor. They were closed down by a wall on the side, so only the underside of the steps where visible unless you stood directly in front of them.

When the medic approached, the cassette cut the connection and perched on one of the crates, looking at him in a somewhat bored fashion.

"Soundwave will be here shortly," Laserbeak said. Ratchet was briefly taken aback, but he hid it with an irritated huff of his intakes. It was the first time he had ever heard the cassette talk, and he had privately thought the little mech just couldn't.

"Where is Bluestreak?" he asked coldly, not breaking optic-contact with the cassette.

"Gee, he just said the boss will be here shortly, Autoslag. What's wrong with your audios? They fritzed or something?"

Ratchet whirled to his right just in time to see Frenzy and Rumble hopping into the room through the nearest window. The twins trotted casually towards their partner and jumped up on two the crates, one on each side of the console and Laserbeak. They were looking at him with something like amused contempt, but Ratchet could see there was a lot of nervousness behind those smirks.

Ratchet's grip on the gun tightened with anger.

"I'm not here to play stupid, cassettes." He spat the word as if it were an insult. "I'm damn sure half the mecha in the Ark would have been easier to bring to this place than me, only they are not the Autobot CMO, are they?" Ratched watched as the smirks darkened into aggressive glares.

"It doesn't take a fragging genius to see your boss needs something from my area of expertise. Well, whatever that is, he'll need my Primus-damned cooperation to get it, so you'd better start talking."

Laserbeak looked as blank as he had before, but Frenzy and Rumble bristled. The whine of their fans mixed with the lower-pitched whir of Ratchet's own high strung systems.

"Frag you, Autobot," said Frenzy in a low growl, his vocalizer steady in cold fury "You are gonna work for us or your 'bot friend gets slagged. You can shove your demands where the sun don't shine until you have the upper hand."

The anger that came with those words was so intense it made the medic flinch inside. Ratchet had always seen Frenzy as a happily destructive glitch who always looked as if he was having the time of his life when he was shooting mecha in the battlefield. He had expected the cassette to mock him, gloating at his lack of leverage and worry for his comrade. Instead, the little mech was radiating fear and anger like a beacon, and that was a bit of an overreaction for just stating an obvious conclusion.

He was musing on this when a low thud echoed far away on the upper levels. The cassettes (the three of them, Ratchet noted) tensed visibly.

Rumble suddenly turned towards the Autobot, pointing a gun that hadn't been there the second before.

"Hand over your gun." There was urgency in the blue mech's voice.

"The frag I will," hissed the medic. Both twins were aiming at him. "I'm not underclocked enough to be unarmed while surrounded by you glitches."

"If you don't hand it by the time Soundwave gets here, you can consider yourself scrapped."

"Oh, I see. Since your fragged boss expected me to meet him here _just to talk_, then I guess it was fragging rude of me to bring-"

"Soundwave doesn't know you are here."

Laserbeak's soft voice echoed in the sudden silence while Ratchet's optics widened and flickered in surprise. The twin cassettes looked sharply at their teammate, and their optics flashed in a silent internal argument.

"What?" Ratchet snapped. "What do you mean he doesn't know I'm here?"

"Beak here means exactly that," Rumble huffed. "If boss sees you waving that thing around, we won't be able to convince him not to slag you in the spot." Ratchet thought he saw an unhappy grimace on the cassette's face, but it only lasted a second before he scowled angrily once more.

The medic took a step back, gazing at the maze of computers at his back. It was the only escape route he had, and he suddenly realized that the complicated line of retreat was probably the reason the cassettes had led him there in the first place.

He was literally shaking with rage now as he realized what that also implied.

"There's no way he's bringing Bluestreak for nothing, you fragging tapes! You lied!" He raised the gun, aiming it directly at Rumble's head.

The cassette didn't even flinch at that. Instead he smirked with venom. "I didn't lie, Autobot. See for yourself."

Rumble tilted the screen of the console by his side towards him and typed a few commands. A video feed popped up in the screen. It looked like a security video that showed a row of small rooms. In the nearest one, the chattering mech was sitting with his hands behind his back.

Ratchet's engines stalled when he recognized the huddled shape and took in the state it was in. He could also see the shape of another cassette outside the cell, cannons alight with charge and fastened on the prisoner.

"If you help us, you won't have to see Buzzsaw here blast his helm off. It's up to you"

"You, Pit-spawned heaps of organic waste," Ratchet spat through clenched denta. He tried desperately to find an angle to the situation he was in, and realized soon enough he didn't have much of a choice but to give in to the symbiote's demands.

"Frag you and your Primus-damned slag of a carrier," the medic said as he surrendered his weapon. Frenzy promptly stepped down from the crate and grabbed it, automatically subspacing it.

"Oh, come on! Did you honestly think we would break the glitch out and hand him to you?" Frenzy snorted with contempt. "At least we are letting you know where he is. Once you are done, you can run crying back to base and tell your moronic buddies, so they can break him out." The red cassette scratched his chin reflexively. "I actually hope you do it soon, ya know. Primus knows I'm damn tired of hearing his fragging vocalizer all day."

Ratchet was about to bark an answer when two sets of footsteps echoed through the stairs in the back of the room. One clunked heavily, and the other padded lightly in a distinctive four-legged pattern.

0

Soundwave almost panicked when he realized his systems where very overheated. He immediately activated his fans and kicked his coolant pump into a higher gear, earning a quick glance from Ravage. His processor had been feeling so fogged lately, he missed half of the warnings that popped up in his visor. A klik later his temperature stabilized itself and his systems fell silent once more.

As the large mech descended the stairs from the building's ancient helipad, he wondered suddenly why Ravage had pinged him, and requested to be let out of the chest compartment. It wasn't strange per se, but it was odd for the cybercat to directly ask for no reason.

He also felt something like worry radiating from the cassette, but he couldn't quite focus on the bond.

Actually, he was having a hard time focusing on anything.

The last couple of solar cycles had been spent in a hazy blur for Soundwave. He had gone about his daily business as well as he could, but he had found himself constantly forgetting where he was going, or simply staring at nothing for entire breems.

Each time something like that had happened, he'd automatically blocked the bond, feeling fear and rage lancing uncontrollably through his processor.

Along with his loss of concentration, Soundwave had also been noticing his increased clumsiness. He had tried to hide it by staying in his workstation as long as possible, but it had reached the point where he actually dreaded going to the rec room to refuel.

As the carrier walked across the rooms of the third floor, he miscalculated the size of an arch and clipped his shoulder with it.

He stalled for a second, looking at the offending masonry with narrowed optics behind his visor, and then continued his way towards the floor that held the communication equipment.

Soundwave could already hear his twin cassettes talking below and he wondered acidly why neither of them had pinged him in recognition when he had arrived on the premises. He had sent a greeting ping, but the troublesome glitches hadn't deigned to say hello.

Actually...he wondered for a moment if he had sent that ping, or if he had just_ thought_ he had. He couldn't quite remember. He was so sure he had, though...

He was so confused that he didn't realize one of the voices didn't belong to his symbiotes.

Then, Soundwave turned around the stair's wall and locked optics with Ratchet.

0

The bond shared between the cassettes and their carrier exploded with emotions. The symbiotes tried to show Soundwave what they saw.

They sent through the bond memory fragments of their carrier losing his temper, slowly breaking down. Fragments of their growing confusion at his lack of communication and the many times the symbiotes had tried to talk to him. How each time he had closed off, bond and vocalizer both silent.

The cassettes tried to explain to Soundwave the leverage they had over the Autobot. How they knew Ratchet had to comply, not only for Bluestreak's sake, but because he was forced to do so by his stupid Autobot ideals and medical vows. They displayed openly their bright expectation that Ratchet would be able to fix whatever was damaging Soundwave.

But their hope and care paled in comparison to the storm of dark emotions: Ravage poured worry, Frenzy and Rumble anxiety, and Laserbeak fear. There was pain, guilt and shame all mixed together.

None of it mattered.

Above the turmoil of information and emotion that ran through the bond, there was Soundwave's all encompassing rage. It was wild and uncontrollable, and the Casetticons realized with horror that he wasn't listening to them. He couldn't.

Soundwave's fogged mind was desperately trying to assess the situation but his logic hubs couldn't keep up. The assault of information the symbiotes threw at him became fragmented and superimposed with what his processor catalogued from his visual input: Enemy, designation: Ratchet. Autobot CMO. Recordicons not attacking the intruder. Intruder not attacking Recordicons. Cassettes feeling shame, guilt, fear. Afraid. Afraid of Soundwave.

His own symbiotes/Rumble/Frenzy/Laserbeak/Ravage/loyal/true/care had lured him there with lies. They had brought an enemy/threat/Autobot/medic to one of his bases/space:personal/safe and they were trying to EXPLAIN? They- they thought he needed fixing/help/need/fear/fear/fear, that he was broken and weak!

They could only be afraid of him because they- they had done something, and it was not right, and they knew he wouldn't approve... THEY/THEY/THEY thought he would be weak/confused/pained/scared/silence/SILENCED enough not to fight back! Betrayed, betrayed, BETRAYED!

Soundwave's vocalizer roared with a sharp, unnatural sound, closer to the scream of a wounded animal than anything a mech would make.

He whirled around and delivered a powerful kick to Ravage, than caught the cassette in mid-chassis and send it flying against the nearest block of communication arrays. The symbiote hit it with a crunch and dropped to the ground, where it laid unmoving.

0

Ratchet looked at Soundwave as the red visor locked into him, and the medic saw the multiple tiny details that said something was wrong.

The carrier mech was a bit of a mystery to the Autobots. He was much more reserved than most Decepticons, so his motivations and personality were a matter of speculation rather than known facts.

Even so, across millennia of fighting against the same mecha, enemies eventually ended up being familiar with each other. Certain details like mannerisms, system sounds, energy signatures... Those kind of things that made mecha who they were eventually slotted into place, just as much as their rank and frame-type.

Neither Ratchet, nor Soundwave were the biggest front-liners their factions had to offer, but the war itself had been so long, Ratchet had been in enough close-quarter fights to be familiar with more than just the Decepticon's name. Right now, his fine-tuned sensors were screaming at the medic that something was amiss with the mech.

Ratchet didn't waste a second and discreetly un-subspaced the extra gun he had packed (cycles after, he still couldn't believe the symbiotes hadn't checked him for that) and kept it hidden behind his back, ready to use it if the situation called for it.

Meanwhile his diagnostic software and sensor arrays were working furiously, showing a number of misaligned components in Soundwave's systems along with several odd energy readings. His fluid pressures and energy levels where a mess, and his EM field was in complete disarray.

Ratchet watched in tension for a few astroseconds as the carrier's visor flashed in different patterns, clearly having some sort of communication with his cassettes.

He turned his attention to the symbiotes and realized they were panicking. Even the ever-cool cybercat was hunching down in a defensive posture, edging away from Soundwave with his audios flattened on his helm.

Ratchet jumped in surprise when Soundwave jerked abruptly and made one of the most horrible sounds the CMO had ever heard from a Cybertronian vocalizer.

The medic pulled the gun on the larger mech, assuming he would attack, but then had to throw himself out of the way as the cybercat flew across the space he had occupied astroseconds ago.

Ratchet watched open-mouthed as the small black shape slid to the ground while Soundwave lunged towards his other symbiotes, ignoring the medic completely.

The scene was utterly surreal, and in that stunned moment, the Autobot saw the cassettes were paralyzed. Their optics were focused on Ravage's still form and their faces were locked in such horrified expressions that Ratched realized they wouldn't move even as Soundwave tore them to pieces.

Ratchet's scowl deepened with determination, and he shot twice in rapid succession.

The blasts of energy weren't strong enough to stop a large mech charging at full speed, but Ratchet had simply aimed at the ground between the cassettes. The noise and the impact was enough to make them react, and they scattered just in time to avoid Soundwave's hand jabbing at Frenzy viciously.

In one swift movement, Soundwave turned to the Autobot and swung an immense fist that Ratchet dodged by inches. The medic was expecting the second blow and dodged once again, but wheile he was ready to parry the third, he watched in bewilderment as Soundwave didn't compensate for his body's momentum and tumbled head-first to the floor.

Ratchet quickly put some distance between them and watched, stunned, as the large Decepticon tried to get up without success. Each time the mech managed to raise his chassis from the floor, he fell to one side or the other, limbs sprawled and convulsing. After a klik of failed attempts, Soundwave stopped trying to rise and just squirmed in the floor, both hands clutching at his helm.

Ratchet -gun still in his hand- took a tentative step towards the prone mech only to be violently shoved to the side as two voices shouted "NO!" in perfect sync.

The twins lunged at Ratchet, making the Autobot retreat more, and then stood between him and their broken boss. They were shaking and panting, their systems in high gear with panic.

Ratchet opened and closed his mouth, his mind working furiously. His scowl didn't waver, but his features softened minutely as he began to understand what was going on.

He subspaced his gun once again and stood before the cassettes in silence until they stopped looking at him as if they would tear his face off at the smallest movement towards their master.

"Why not Hook?" Ratchet asked as Soundwave began emitting soft moans full of static. The red and blue mecha turned to look at Soundwave. They looked so pained that Ratchet felt unwanted pity welling up inside his spark.

Rumble padded closer to their carrier but Frenzy stood with uncertain optics on the medic. "He-he and Hook don't get along... Boss would have never allowed him anywhere near his processor chips."

Ratchet's engine revved in an angry growl, but not at the cassettes. "I knew you lot were slagged in the processor, but I didn't think it was bad enough that the enemy's CMO was a safer choice than your own."

The little red mech went from miserable to bristling in an instant. "Maybe you're right, but we didn't have a hostage to wave in front of Hooks face. You should keep that in mind Autoglitch, because that hasn't changed yet."

Ratchet froze in his struts and narrowed his optics to slits. Whatever pity he felt was evaporating fast after those words. "What do you want from me Decepticon? I don't have the tools to treat Soundwave here -Hell, I don't even know what's wrong with him- "

Ratchet turned his face to the screen of the console. It had tumbled to the floor with the fight, but it still displayed the video feed from the brig. Buzzsaw was in the same place he had been, albeit shaking slightly. Ratchet's look as he turned back to Frenzy was somber.

"You haven't given me any guaranties regarding Bluestreak and I... I have made hard choices before."

In one single movement he drew his gun from subspace and aimed it at Soundwave's helm.

The twins stood very still and looked at him through narrowed visors. A smirk formed slowly on Rumble's face.

"You expect us to believe that, Autobot? That you would sacrifice one of your own, just to have an advantage in the war effort? Please, we were not activated last orn, you know," Rumble said, chuckling with nervousness.

Ratchet tightened his grip on the gun. "'An advantage' doesn't begin to describe what killing Bucket-head's TiC would be to the war effort. And Rumble..." His optics where cold as ice as they locked with the symbiote's. "Yes, I would."

The smirk in Rumble's face dissolved in disbelief and then into despair. He looked at his brother, then at Soundwave, and then back at Ratchet. "No! I don't believe you... You wouldn't hurt Soundwave! You can't!" His voice was rising in pitch fast, and his face was contorted in fear, mirroring Frenzy's.

"You don't understand! He- he- How are we supposed to- He wouldn't have-" His mouth kept on moving but words didn't come out anymore, and he looked back and forth between the medic and his carrier.

"He has never hurt Ravage before." Laserbeak's whisper could barely be heard from the other side of the room. Throughout the whole conversation, he hadn't left Ravage's side. He was still looking at the cybercat when he said that.

The twins flinched as if they had been punched physically. They looked back at Soundwave's shivering frame and then at Ratchet. Frenzy lowered his helm, his whole frame shaking gently.

"Please." His fans where spluttering and gasping. "If- if we helped you get your 'bot back... would- would you fix him?"

Ratchet stared in silence at the quivering shape. The cassette looked so small and helpless he had to make an actual effort to maintain the anger he felt.

He sighed, feeling as if he had never been so tired in his life. Tired of the war, tired of choices, and tired of looking at mecha shivering with grief.

"I can try, but I cannot promise you anything. Not before I know what's wrong." Frenzy's head snapped up. The hope in his expression made Ratchet's spark clench. "IF you help us bring Bluestreak back... and I will have to take Soundwave to the Ark."

The twins frowned, then looked at each other doubtfully when Laserbeak soared above their heads and stared at them from on top of a crate. Their visors flickered in silent dialogue for a few kliks and the three of them turned narrowed optics to the medic.

"How can we be sure you won't just reprogram him or something back at the glitch-mothership?"

"You are just gonna have to trust me, because either way, I cannot work on him here." Ratchet was starting to get severely irritated with the cassettes' constant suspicions. "Besides, that's the kind of thing you fraggers do, not Autobots."

More internal comm discussions among the cassettes, this time much more prolonged.

"We will go with you." Frenzy and Rumble said, taking a step forward and staring defiantly into Ratchet's optics.

"WHAT! Are you insane! I'm not gonna have you two Pit-spawned scraplets running around the inside of the Ark. You are fragging walking security hazards!"

"We are NOT gonna leave our boss alone in a ship full of Autoslags, an' besides, we can be really quiet."

"Quiet as glitchmice! You won't even know we are there!"

"Yeah! Red Alert never knows we are there half the time so-"

Frenzy whirled and punched Rumbled in the shoulder.

"Ow, ow! Ok, ok, whatever."

Ratchet vented a huff in annoyance. "Frag you both." He pinched his nose ridge and contemplated the steps that followed.

"OK, turn off whatever damned thing you are using to jam communications. If I'm gonna get Soundwave to the sickbay I'll need my internal comm to tell Optimus about it."

"No way we-" Both twins were about to argue the last statement when a deep voice rumbled through the open space.

"I believe that is not going to be necessary, Ratchet" Said the leader of the Autobots, as he entered the room.

0


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 05

0

The encounter between the cassettes and the other Autobots had been awkward.

After Hound, Optimus and Jazz entered the room, and there came the mandatory period of gun-pointing, name-calling, and threat-shouting present in every mid-war negotiation ever. It was a ritual more than anything, especially given that the Decepticon representatives where three Cassetticons vs. four Autobots, one of them far larger than the three symbiotes put together.

Even so, the twins hissed and spat static like angry cats and Laserbeak stood in front of Ravage, wings open in a threatening pose.

Optimus looked at the two fallen Decepticons. Ravage was a slumped form below a dent in the metal wall of the machines while Soundwave was making small keening noises and twisting jerkily, oblivious to everything around him. The leader of the Autobots asked Hound and Jazz to wait outside the room and then proceeded to sit on the floor. Insults and threats rained around him but he remained silent, simply looking at the cassettes.

Ratchet was familiar with this process, which most 'bots called 'The Stare'. It was Prime's chief strategy for dealing with enraged mecha. It consisted of him staring at them with a look so full of understanding and calmness that his interlocutors rapidly became self-conscious and eventually shut up out of embarrassment.

Rumor on the Ark was Megatron had only been able to resist it because when Prime had tried to pull it the Decepticon leader had started shooting one klik into the pause.

Eventually the cassettes fell prey to The Stare and calmed down.

Optimus then turned to Ratchet and asked what was going on. The CMO filled him in with the events since Rumble infiltrated the Ark and then fell silent, too. It was a heavy silence, every mech looking between allies and foes, measuring each other.

During all this, the internal comm frequency of the Autobot officers had been buzzing with urgent conversation.

0

.:Just like that?:. Hound asked, horrified.

.:Hehehe, cyberkitty must have told him something he really didn't wanna know...,:. Jazz replied with a smirk.

.:It's not so simple, Jazz, he's a Primus-damned carrier, they are built like that... do you have any idea how many core-deep protocols they have in place that make them protect their symbiotes?:. the medic replied.

.:I don't, but I'm guessing a really big number of those are fried, by the looks of things... Anyways, do you have any idea what's wrong with the mech? He looks pretty damn nasty... more than usual, I mean.:.

There was a brief moment of silence as Ratchet reflected on the answer.

.:I'm pretty sure his current state is because of what I just said: a carrier frame-type simply cannot go around kicking his scraplets without consequences. Attacking Ravage probably triggered a cascade failure. It likely took a little while for that glitch to develop, but it's not the real cause,:. said the medic.

.:What do you mean?:. Optimus voice rumbled through the frequency.

.:Well, to have that kind of mess in his priority tree to begin with... whatever caused it must have been going on for a while. Perhaps a virus. It could have been a hardware malfunction fixed in the wrong way, but it looks more like software damage.:. Ratchet emitted a burst of static, the internal equivalent to an annoyed sigh. .:Optimus, whatever it is, it's really bad... the symbiotes were terrified. They were terrified _before_ Soundwave glitched.:.

.:Hmmmmm,:. Prime considered thoughtfully

.:Are we really going to bring them to the Ark? Red Alert is going to have a fit.:. Hound squirmed a bit thinking what was waiting for them once they returned to the Security Director's range.

.:This is our best chance to recover Bluestreak. Intensifying the internal security of the Ark and tending to wounded enemies is a rather small price to pay for having eyes inside the Decepticon headquarters,:. Prime said, and they all had to agree. As long as Mirage was out of the equation, they would have terrible difficulty retrieving the captive Autobot. Infiltration was one thing, but data gathering was essential for a compound as large as the Decepticon HQ.

.:There might be another problem...,:. Hound mused. .:Ratchet, do you know how long Soundwave would have to be on board?:.

.:Not yet. It's impossible to tell until I fix his current glitch and scan for the root problem. What are you getting at?:.

.:Megatron is going to flip out when he finds out his TiC is on the Ark. He'll want to negotiate for his return immediately. What are we going to tell him? the green mech.

Jazz snorted. .:When that happens, we trade the mech for a cube of high-grade and call it an orn. Let Megs take care of his glitch-ridden crew. Actually, we could make something good come of all this. We have a really high-quality bargaining chip on our hands...:.

.:No.:. The medic's negative snapped sharply through the frequency.

.:Given how the cassettes were acting, Soundwave was receiving no help at all at his base. Whatever treatment can be given, he will likely abandon it once he gets back to Megatron.:. He huffed in irritation once more. .:If the slagger is going to be my patient, then I'll make damn sure that neither him nor that psychopath they have for a physician are able to frag up his recovery.:.

The medic's annoyance ebbed away when he remembered the terrified faces of the twins when Soundwave kicked Ravage. .:Primus, they practically told me they trusted me more with their carrier than Hook... How fragged up is that?:.

.:Not so fragged up, m' mech. Have you seen the Constructicons deal with their patients? I'd prefer being treated by Starscream with a headache over those sadistic scrap-heaps,:. Jazz said with a shudder.

.:Hmmm, point taken.:.

0

Bluestreak was alone once again, albeit completely bewildered.

That afternoon (or at least he thought it was the afternoon) Dirge had poked his ugly cone head around the corner. After some punching, the seeker had gone away (presumably called through his internal comm) and immediately after that, Buzzsaw had appeared.

Bluestreak had watched him land gracefully and near the opposite wall. The cassette had stared at him intensely, guns glowing faintly. The Autobot had thought the behaviour fitted the Recordicon's vulture-like shape and also, as the cassette had stood there almost unmoving, Bluestreak was reminded of its carrier's visit. This one was lasting for a long while, though, much more than the few kliks Soundwave had stayed at a time.

"Well, hello there, pocket bird, I don't think I've seen you around here much. But really, what can I expect from the highest bunch of cowards the mighty Bucket-head faction has to offer. Oh, wait! I've always wanted to ask: is it true you have only Abba songs recorded in your tape? At the Ark we have this bet running: half votes Abba, half votes Aqua. Be a good glorified chicken and help a mech win a cube of high grade. Come on, spill the beans. Oh, and before you squawk, don't get mad at me, I didn't invent that one, you know. It was one hundred percent Sideswipe humor, that one. Actually, I think I heard him use it that day you and Ravage were poking at the-"

Bluestreak's vocalizer stuttered in surprise when a piercing shriek rang through the brig. He watched, puzzled, as Buzzsaw flapped his wings once and stood shivering and clicking small noises against the wall. After a klik or so, the strange seizure ended, and the symbiote became quiet once more.

Eventually Buzzsaw went away, leaving Bluestreak alone.

The sharpshooter's impression that there wasn't a single sane Decepticon on Earth cemented itself just a bit more firmly.

0

At the same time Optimus Prime and his accompanying group of Autobots returned to the Ark with a handful of wary cassettes (and a very unconscious Communications Officer), Ratbat pinged Buzzsaw.

He had been working diligently at Soundwave's console to cover up for him and make his supposed work-related absence barely noticeable. Ratbat's nitpicky nature made him the best-suited for the job when Soundwave was out of commission, although the lack of patience made him more irritable than usual.

.:I am assuming they bit. Primus-damned Stunticons went haywire in the third deck's hallway, so I couldn't keep up with the conversation,:. Ratbat said.

.:Of course they did. I thought you had endless confidence in your plans, Ratbat. I am surprised.:. Somehow, Buzzsaw managed to rise an optic ridge with his voice.

.:I do, but tactics and statistical response-predictions are all well and good until they aren't. Ravage is proof enough.:.

Ratbat shivered in front of Soundwave's workstation, and Buzzsaw echoed his worry on the other side of the bond.

.:Yes... that was certainly unexpected. I- I never thought he would...:. Buzzsaw's channel wavered with the remembered sensation: Ravage's anguished yowling and then silence.

.:Now is not the time for this,:. snapped Ratbat. .:The Autobots will want to establish contact as soon as they arrive at the Ark, maybe sooner. We need to prepare.:.

.:Fine... Pit, If anyone had told me ten orns ago we would be helping those Prime aft-kissers into the base I would have pecked their optics out. I am still having trouble believing it was that easy to get them to move Soundwave to their base.:.

.:Oh, please! Manipulating Prime's pack of morons is easier than scaring Breakdown into stasis. As terrible as his reputation might be, the medic is no exception... provided the right incentive.:.

.:Bargaining with a prisoner in the brig would have worked with any of them.:.

.:That is not what I was referring to.:.

.:Oh?:.

.:It was Soundwave himself,:. Ratbat said. He paused for a moment, feeling so uncomfortable he started swaying in the large seat designed for his carrier. .:I was quite sure that once the medic saw Soundwave's... state, he would agree to treat him.:.

.:Odd... that was quite a gamble.:.

.:No, it wasn't, I was positive he would. It's in his medical core programming as much as his nature. The fact that he chose to take Soundwave to the Ark was just a bonus.:.

Buzzsaw remained silent for almost a klik.

.:Ratbat, is this really the best course of action? I mean... it's the Primus-damned Ark! If they decide to do anything to him, we won't be able to do much, even if the glitch-twins are there.:.

.:It is. They are Autobots. They will keep their word and heal Soundwave out of honour, pity, or another of those senseless reasons that make them fix enemies on a regular basis. The way things are right now, I believe Soundwave is better off there that in Constructicon hands.:. Ratbat smirked knowingly. .:Also, I'd like to see what happens to them when they try to get in his processor... I hope their CMO isn't as incompetent on the code-level as ours is.:.

Buzzsaw shook with silent laughter. .:I do remember the last time Hook hard-lined with the boss while he was unconscious... those were some really nasty hacks. Soundwave's autonomic defenses were really inspired that day.:.

.:Indeed.:. Ratbat mumbled. The pink cassette felt unaccountably tired.

As he filled in for Soundwave's absence, he felt sick with the emotions from the other symbionts and from Soundwave. As much as the plan had panned out -just as he had predicted- the anxiety was eating at him. No matter how much confidence he had shown to Buzzsaw, the truth was their carrier was in enemy territory, with almost non-existent backup and an unknown health condition... And this was still the course of action with the best survival odds for all of them.

Things just didn't get much worse than that.

.:Ratbat? Still there?:.

.:Yes, yes. Where were we?:.

.:Finding the best way to sneak enemies into the base and get them to take their slagged chattering 'bot with them. What are we going to give up, airshaft B-63? Ravage will miss it but it's the closest to the brig.:.

.:No, I'm telling the twins that the soonest viable time for extraction will be in two joors. R-112 will be closest to the Autobot by then.:.

.:Two joors? I thought there would also be a window in a cycle or so with the shift cha-:. Ratbat could almost see Buzzsaw's optics flicker when the rest of the information slotted into place. .:Oh, R-112... I see. I didn't know he'd arrive so soon. Wasn't the ETA sometime tomorrow night?:.

.:Yes, but it seems they were really eager to return home. Blast Off pushed it quite a lot.:.

.:Did you have something to do with it?:.

.:I might have mentioned our illustrious leader's impatience regarding the next mission they had scheduled once they arrived on Earth... Throwing Megatron's name here and there seems to work pretty well with the Combaticons.:.

.:Go figure. So, R-112, huh? Are you sure the sniper will be alive by the time they get there? Vortex gets frisky after too much time away.:.

.:He also makes sure it lasts.:.

.:Couldn't this come back to bite us in the aft? I am pretty sure the Autobots won't be that cooperative if they find their little sniper torn to pieces... even less so if they find out it could have been avoided.:.

.:They won't take it out on Soundwave. At least not now that he is in the Ark. Prime wouldn't allow it. As far as they know, we are almost betraying our evil faction for the sake of protecting our beloved carrier. Even if some of them believe it's not such a selfless act, they still like that kind of soppy things. If they find nothing but a scrap-heap on Vortex's table when they arrive... well, wouldn't that be a matter of ill timing? How could we have known that Vortex would, just this time, come back home early? Such a case of bad luck...:.

Buzzsaw's chuckle echoed through the bond softly. .:And mecha say I am the evil glitch of the group.:.

.:I am not evil. They are just enemies. No matter how many favors we get from the Autobots today, next orn they will be shooting at us again. If they have one less soldier to do so, all the better.:.

0


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 06

0

Soundwave felt himself fall. Oddly, his gyros detected he was moving at much more speed than anything his thrusters could achieve, but he didn't think it was worth noting.

All around him, a thick fog obscured everything but amorphous bright things that zoomed by, just beyond his reach. He wanted to grab on to one of them, just to slow down, but when he tried, the blurring objects seemed to dodge his fingers just in time. A dull frustration was beginning to build in him as Soundwave swung his limbs trying to establish some kind of contact...when he realized something was wrong. He couldn't quite figure what it was, though.

He looked around trying to find the source of disturbance, but there was nothing other than the fog and the things zooming by. He tried to rationalize his source of discomfort and realized he couldn't do it. Not that he was unable to find a reason but that he just couldn't quite focus on thinking, period. This failed to alarm him, but his HUD started scrolling some odd signs. They were all red and tagged critical, but they didn't make sense. He could read the separate words, but the meaning eluded him.

After some time went by (kliks? breems? joors? those words reminded him of time, but he couldn't remember how much time they meant) he felt a sharp itch in his helm, as if some small organic creature had gotten into it somehow and was running around his chips, scratching here and there. It made him uncomfortable, but it wasn't that much of a problem, either.

Actually, nothing seemed to be important, really. He didn't know where he was, and he couldn't catch the damn things that moved, but what the frag! Why did he need to do that anyway? Soundwave relaxed and let himself fall, simply feeling the vertiginous sense of speed it brought. He felt like he could do it until time ended, and if that eventually happened, nothing really important was lost. His thoughts kept on wandering in a lazy circle of acceptance right until something snapped.

The itch returned, and as the blue mech idly scratched his helm, the creepy-crawly sensation turned into a sharp needle of pain that focused on one side of his head. Soundwave jerked and clutched at it, and as the pain subsided, the fog in his head cleared a tiny fraction.

Finally, a process made itself heard over the white noise and informed him that the environment surrounding him was an impossibility. There wasn't any known location with endless free-falls and bright things zooming by, so, logically, this was no-place. Consequently, his logical hubs told him no-place equates to no-physical-laws so existence was not possible.

Logically, Soundwave panicked.

He reset all of his sensors, but the information remained unchanged. He additionally noticed his internal sensors were not forwarding logical information either: his fuel tanks were %137 full and his body heat should have been enough to melt half his cabling even though he felt slightly cold.

The stinging pain returned to his processor, now on the back. Then on the other side, too, and once more, closer to his frontal-hub. Each time this happened Soundwave felt more and more routines activating, and his thoughts becoming clearer and clearer.

Soon his attention was focused solely on two red words on his HUD: cascade failure. They were underlined and followed by several exclamatory marks. Soundwave hadn't even known his HUD could display an urgency marker of higher priority than the usual red.

The now familiar crawling came once again, and this time he felt his consciousness fade away.

0

"Boss, you hear me?" Each whispered word from Frenzy was punctuated by a light tap to Soundwave's chest compartment.

Ratchet whirled around the console where he was typing and yanked the cassette away from the prone body of his carrier. "Stop doing that! I only stabilized him enough to regain the most basic systems, but he's still completely fragged up. Stay away from him for at least one more damned cycle! And you, too, don't think I didn't see you!"

Both cassettes struggled against the strong hands clamped on their arms and cursed at the medic colorfully, but Ratchet paid no attention at all. He dragged them to the sickbay doors were Bumblebee was just skidding to a halt, having evidently been chasing the smaller mecha through the corridors.

"Here. Keep the scraplets away from the Primus-damned room for at least ten blasted kliks this time," said the medic as he shoved the twins in the panting minibot's direction.

Bumblebee seemed about to say something when a pained moan came from Soundwave's berth. When both 'bots turned, the twins seized the opportunity and run back to their carrier's side.

"Fffffrnzzzzzzzzzzz, Rrrrmmmmlllllllll..."Soundwave said, and both cassettes froze by the bed. They looked at the prone mech and at each other alternatively. Soundwave's visor flickered on to a dull red, and he turned his head a fraction in their direction. At that, both twins started nodding and calling to him excitedly, but an instant later the visor was off again, and Soundwave started cycling air slowly in deep recharge. The cassettes sagged visibly where they stood and then silently returned to the door, where both larger mecha had been watching the whole scene.

"I told you so," Ratchet said. His berthside manners had that sand-paper quality, regardless of what faction the patient belonged to. "There's at least one more joor to go until his defrag routines finish processing the repair-software properly. Only then will his processes be stable enough to be coherent. Now, get lost. You are not helping him, and you are most definitely not helping me, either."

They didn't say a thing as Bemblebee escorted them back to the cell that had been assigned to them, not even to any of the 'bots they crossed paths with on the way there. They waited quietly while the bars where deactivated remotely, and then slid into the room just as noiselessly.

0

For the most part, Ratchet had to admit, Rumble and Frenzy had behaved.

After the fuss Red Alert had made regarding their new "guests" and all the security measures he had insisted on, Ratchet had expected to be annoyed out of his mind by the rampaging symbionts, but that had been far from the case.

The Ark had been prepared for Ratchet's arrival as well as his patient's. Red Alert had enclosed part of the sickbay with force fields, and First Aid had already prepared a table with a scanning array for Soundwave and a secondary table for Ravage, per the CMO's instructions via internal comm. Since even after scanning Soundwave it would take quite a while to compile a diagnosis, Ratchet had wanted to work on Ravage as soon as he entered the sickbay.

Ravage had regained consciousness in the middle of the trip to the Autobot base. He had intended to return with Laserbeak to the Victory and take care of his wounds there, but given that some of this back struts had been severely bent and one of his hind-leg's hydraulics were completely torn he had had little success in escaping the medic's clutches.

Even so, roughly five kliks after the repairs had been done, Ravage had been nowhere to be seen. No one had caught sight of the cassette, but the twins had assured the Autobots that the cybercat had probably been halfway to the Decepticon HQ before First Aid had noticed the distinct lack of patient on Ravage's surgical table.

Meanwhile, Jazz led the twins to a small room where Bumblebee was waiting for them. Frenzy and Rumble had looked apprehensive at being left alone with the scout and had showed it by playing the 'impertinent scraplets' part, as Prowl had called it through the comm. Soon enough, though, they realized Bumblebee was just there to set a few ground rules. He had introduced himself as the 'bot they ought to call in case they had any kind of problem.

Bumblebee's duties also involved watching and reporting the cassettes behaviour, as well as keeping them in line.

The Prime had assigned Bumblebee the task for a number of reasons. Being easy-going and less threatening looking (dubbed "more tape sized" in the scout's mind) than other Autobots, it was more likely the cassettes would cooperate with him. Optimus didn't have much hopes that the twins would behave themselves, but minimizing the friction as much as possible was important.

The truth was that, as voluntarily as the symbionts had come, they were considered prisoners. The security hazard was simply too great to allow them to roam the halls freely, even accompanied. This meant that they only had access to the cell that had been assigned to them or the sickbay, and as soon as their carrier was out of the sickbay, he would be transferred to the brig too.

To the Ark's absolute bafflement, neither cassette had complained about this.

One of the Aerialbots had taunted them regarding this fact, but the cassettes had simply laughed and invited the mech to come to the Decepticon brig to see what his perspective on hospitality was after that. Slingshot was noticeably more quiet when he entered the rec room afterwards.

The only thing that had Bumblebee completely on edge was that the cassettes just didn't care at all about visiting schedules. They clearly didn't trust Ratchet and wanted to remain in the sickbay at all times and, consequently, did everything they could to make it so. That went from lock-picking their way into the medic's domain to actually injuring each other enough to be sent there. To Bumblebee's increasing distress, it kept on happening, no matter what he did.

Last time had consisted of the cassettes simply running away from him when he was accompanying them through the corridors. It wasn't technically escaping the brig, but it was still embarrassing as the Pit.

0

.:Still nothing?:. asked Laserbeak.

.:No.:. both twins chorused. They were leaking worry through the bond and they didn't even bother hiding it. .:The slagging medic says it will be at least a joor before he's even conscious.:.

.:Pit...:.

.:Yeah, and that's only the motherrusting glitch he had at the compound... Doc says the scans show there's something worse going on. That the glitch was, like, the tip of the iceberg...:.

.:Does he have an estimate on how long will it take to recover?:.

.:How long!? He doesn't fragging know yet what it is! He's hoping that Soundwave will help him with it or something, because apparently, boss' routine trees are so fragged UP he- :. At this point Frenzy's vocalizer fritzed with static.

.:I see:. Laserbeak sent a deep feeling of patience through the bond, and the twins answered with gratitude at the prospect of not being needled with more questioning. They knew the other symbiotes were eager to know more about Soundwave's status, but waiting there with nothing to do was draining and even more so being grilled for answers all the time.

They jumped onto one of the berths in the cell and sat close together.

One of the few things Red Alert had allowed Frenzy and Rumble was the use of their internal comm to contact the other cassettes. Of course, the security director had let them know that he would be monitoring said comms, and, just as promised, their exchanges with their fellow symbionts had a faintly annoying openness to them that signaled an external decryption of the channel.

On the other side, the twins were the personal ninja army (as Rumble insisted they should be called every orn) of Soundwave, and they were used to working around such problems. Red Alert was not used to having both twins in the brg at the same time, so he didn't know just how well they could synch.

Whenever they had needed to broadcast something hidden from the paranoid Autobot, they contacted Laserbeak with a particular ping that signaled such moments, and stood extremely close to each other. The flying cassette then would go to another one of the symbionts in the Decepticon HQ, and remain very close to him as well. Then they opened two simultaneous channels, with almost the same frequency, only one of them was lightly encrypted and the other one was so messed up that it sounded like rambling static. Teletran 1 detected one open channel coming from the coordinates of the twins directed to some place in the Victory, laced with a lot of rasping static on the background. On these occasions, Rumble always communicated through the secure channel, while Frenzy took on the distraction.

This had, as a side-effect, left Red Alert extremely torqued, since he had hoped Frenzy would request more relevant information than updates on human soap operas from the other cassettes.

.:So, birdbrain... what about your end? Things going smooth?:.

.:Yes, if by smooth you mean Ratbat finally managed to arrange the damn extraction time and place with the Autobot SiC.:.

.:Good. Wait, do they know Vortex will have already been chewing his chips by the time they get there?:.

.:They asked about it, yes.:.

.:And?:.

.:They were less than thrilled, but a window in security happens at a given time for a reason:.

.:Hehehe, morons.:.

.:Indeed. Either way, ETA for the Autobot recovery team is on schedule and everything's set... not that it will be much of a challenge without Soundwave here.:.

.:Pff, damn right! Now that boss is out of commission, and without our rad spying skills, it will be like taking energon treats from the Stunticons!:.

.:Your rad spying skills... right. You glitches be prepared, Ratbat might be one hundred and twenty percent sure the Autobots are still going to help Soundwave once they have their chatter-box back, but he's been wrong before... Just keep an eye out for yourselves and keep an eye on the boss.:.

0

Bluestreak's prolonged stay in the brig had made his recharge cycles more frequent and deep. He had become sluggish due to the low pressure of his internal fluids, and his self repair system struggled to keep up.

When the cell transfer order came through, he was deep in recharge.

The appointed mech for the task had been Motormaster. He had tried to wake the sniper up but no matter how much he shook him, Bluestreak had been in the middle of a deep core defragmentation, too groggy to walk properly. The Stunticon had been only too happy to simply drag the protesting mech by his remaining doorwing.

Vortex was humming happily and arranging his toolbox when he heard the door ping. He looked up as they entered, his visor following the recharging 'bot. Motormaster dragged the sharpshooter through the room and left him sprawled in a section of the workstation that could be separated from the rest by energy bars. The red visor stayed on Bluestreak as the grogginess became recharge once again.

The cheerful humming had never stopped.

0


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 07

0

"Wakey- wakey, little 'bot."

Bluestreak turned his head towards the voice minutely, his routines booting up sluggishly due to the lack of fuel. His vocalizer turned on first, as per usual. "Hrrrm, yes, 'm awake. Dunno why the frag 'nyone bothers to wake 'm up here, not like 'm on a schedule 'r somethin... Heh, probably no one is 'n this fragged base anyways. 'M pretty sure you just, like, spend the whole day scratching your afts..."

"Hehehe, hello there..."

He couldn't identify the voice. It was a bit high pitched and it was just too bright...in a completely wrong way. "Primus, who the frag goes around making so much noise. I bet Starscream would approve though, most Pit-spawned irritating vocalizer this side of anywhere..." Bluestreak's own voice begun wavering a bit as he started powering down once more.

"Come on little 'bot. Recharge time is over. If you don't stay awake for me, I'm gonna have to keep you awake myself." This was followed by a giggle and something tapping his helm lightly.

Bluestreak on-lined his optics and saw himself. Vortex's visor was so close to his face that almost the only thing he could see were his own optics as they widened in fear. He recoiled violently and hit his head against a wall.

As the copter retreated a few steps, Bluestreak saw he wasn't in the brig anymore. He was in a small cell at the back of a large room. The front half contained a reclinable table with restraint chains and a few gadgets that Bluestreak didn't want to think about. To the right of the table there was a bench in complete disarrayof spare parts and internal circuits and on the left there was a smaller, wheeled table. On top of it, there was a tool-box open, and the already terrified Autobot could see rows of neatly arranged tools inside. They were shaped differently but almost all of them ended in sharp points.

"Finally! I thought you were going to recharge forever," Vortex said, and there was so much glee in his voice Bluestreak could almost see the smile behind the mask. "I could have woken you myself, but I always do love that moment of recognition. You know, when a processor suddenly pops up the designation to match the face." A contented sigh escaped Vortex's vents, punctuated by more tapping to the sniper's head. "I really, really do."

Bluestreak jerked away from the touch as if it had burned and saw that Vortex had left the energy bars deactivated when he entered the cell. The sniper threw himself at the Combaticon, making him stagger with the impact, and tried to make a run for it, but the copter simply laughed heartily and quickly outpaced him, standing in front of the room's exit. Bluestreak froze on the spot and started retreating slowly. He was expecting Vortex to approach him, to try to force him back into the cell, but the interrogator reclined on the door with a nonchalant stance and crossed arms.

Bluestreak retreated enough to put the table between them. "Well, now- now what? Are we going to play the cybercat and glitchmouse game? Because, to be honest, I'm kinda tired. Dunno you, but I've had the worst of on-linings today... you know, being woken up by a psychotic freak and all. Kinda makes you wonder, right? I mean, we all know your own Pit-slagged faction hates you. Even your slagged gestalt mates hate you, and they're every bit as glitched as you are. That's fragging saying something! I wish you lot could look at yourselves when you combine, Bruticus is probably the most underclocked mech in the history of underclocked. You must be thankful they don't regularly perform sentience check ups, or you might be in trouble there. Well, at least you wouldn't be alone. You could take Motormaster with you, and the lack of contrast would help. We could take pictures and all. I bet my buddies back at the Ark- "

After letting the Autobot go on for several kliks, Vortex snorted suddenly and laughed happily. "I have to admit, I now understand why Swindle thought I'd have fun," he said, tapping his left arm distractedly and slowly moving to the right.

Bluestreak's gaze was attracted to the _ting-ting-ting_ noises and he realized the interrogator had been holding a laser scalpel the whole time. He didn't pause his relentless epithet shower for an astrosecond, but as he moved slowly, keeping once again the reclinable table between himself and Vortex, he hunched his helm a tiny fraction.

It had been such a minute movement that most mecha might have missed it, but Vortex hadn't. The smile widened under his mask.

0

When Vortex had returned to the Decepticon HQ, he'd noticed that a few mecha glanced at him with something like expectant looks. Soon enough, he had been told about the chattering Autobot being held for interrogation. The Combaticon had been delighted with the prospect of putting his skills to use so soon but hadn't given it much more thought.

As he'd heard Bluestreak's first slurred words when he on-lined, though, he realized what all the fuss had been about.

The sniper was a really entertaining puzzle. The hail of words masked not only the system sounds that most mecha made unconsciously, but also the facial expressions, since he synchronized them with what he was talking about. All the same, Vortex knew the cover wasn't perfect.

That slight dip of the sniper's chin was proof enough.

0

Bluestreak saw Vortex circle the table slowly and mirrored the movement in the other direction. Then the copter changed direction and he did as well. The sniper thought they must look quite silly on the security feeds. Every time he started to get slightly close to the exit, Vortex would change his pacing and force him to walk away from it to keep the table between them.

Bluestreak knew Vortex was toying with him but he couldn't do much about it. It was postponing the inevitable and, as shameful as the thought was, he would scrape up every klik of pain-free time he could. He was scared to the bolts by what the copter would do to him if Bluestreak stopped playing his games, and if all that was required was to walk five paces left and right, it was perfectly fine with him.

All the while, the Combaticon kept on giggling. At first Bluestreak thought the sadistic mech was simply crazy, or even that he was enjoying the bizarre game they were sharing, but suddenly the copter added a couple of words to a comment Bluestreak made on Brawl's hygiene, and the Autobot realized that Vortex was actually listening to him.

Vortex laughed at the right parts and sometimes even added his two cents to the monologue. He nodded and made all the little noises a mech does when he is following a conversation.

Since he'd first arrived at the Decepticon base Bluestreak hadn't had one single mech actually listen to the words he said (except perhaps Soundwave, but he had no way to know). The thought that the interrogator actually did disturbed him greatly. He wasn't even sure why.

Suddenly Vortex stopped and pressed both hands to the table surface, looking at the sniper intently. "I have a question for you."

"You have a question for me. As in, you are actually going to ask nicely what you want. I am humbled by your interrogation skills, Mr. Fragged-up-in-the-helm. I see how that must have earned you the strategic plans of the entire Autobot army, because really, what mech could resist such outstanding technique. You know what, I'm betting you could actually teach this to Soundwave and he'd have every communication satellite under his control. He could call it the "I'll ping you politely" hack. All he has to do is send a request and instant access! You could also use it for-"

Vortex chuckled good-naturedly, "Ok, ok, let's forget about that for the time being. I was just wondering, why do you talk? Because, when someone talks they want to say something or have their opinion heard regarding something, but you don't really like to be heard."

Suddenly, Vortex moved at a blinding speed around the table and caught Bluestreak's handcuffs before he could retreat. The sniper kicked him hard, but his systems were too underpowered to put up any real fight. The copter hit the back of Bluestreak's knees, making the sniper buckle, and proceeded to monologue on his own while he dragged the struggling Autobot to the reclinable table.

"Even so, if it was just the noise, you could also play music or make noises that would leave your vocalizer free to talk as well, but that is not the case. You deliberately like to speak all the time without pause, even when you are talking to no one- I've been browsing security tapes- so really, the only thing I can think of is that you talk just for the sake of talking. But the thing is, no one does anything just for the sake of doing it."

He slammed the battered mech onto the flat surface and fastened the cuffs that held his hands to the head of the table. After that, he fixed the helm looking forward with a thin strip of metallic mesh across his forehead.

"There is a reason for everything a mech does, be it self-gratification, orders, or a number of other things. The importance they have is assigned by every mech, and no two are the same. It is really interesting once you think about it."

When Bluestreak's helm was properly secured, Vortex slipped a hand between the sniper's neck cables and the table, dipping his fingers inside the seam where the base of the helm met the neck struts. For a brief tank-churning moment, Bluestreak thought that the interrogator was caressing his internal cables, but soon he heard a small _click_, and the hand went away. He saw out of the corner of his optic as Vortex let a tiny metallic object fall on the side table, and he hoped with a shudder that whatever the copter had taken from him was replaceable.

"I love my job, and I'm reeeeally good at it, hehehe. I have opened up more mecha with my words than with this scalpel, though- and that is something, because, let me tell, you this is my second favourite blade, I have my designation carved on it and everything. But back to the point. What I mean is, I know the ins and out of a mech's processor really well, and I can see that talking is what keeps your pedes on the ground...what keeps you sane."

The Combaticon proceeded to tie the still-kicking legs to a couple of restraints at the foot of the table, and also secured his midsection and elbows with more bonds.

"Now, back to the real question: why would a mech duck their head?"

The sniper stared at him in confusion trying to follow the crazed topic changes and battling panic at the same time.

"I think that there are a lot of reasons why a mech would dip their chin, but let's put the question in context, right? I _could_ pretend we are not talking about you, but that would be stupid, so let's cut the slag and say, 'why did you just duck your head when I showed you my very pretty blade?' Why does the mech that needs to be talking even when he is alone, look at a tiny laser scalpel and hunch?"

When the Autobot was properly secured on the table, Vortex touched something underneath it and the surface started rising, almost to a vertical position. He then turned his back on the Autobot and began fumbling inside the toolbox on the smaller table.

"Well, in my expertise, when mecha are threatened, they tend to protect what's most valuable to them. So I say to myself, 'I think I'm finally seeing a pattern here! Isn't your vocalizer right there? Could it be that your most important thing IS talking, after all?' Also, you know what else I noticed? I realized that you only stop talking when someone is talking to you. But not anyone, just someone you are paying attention to, someone whose words are important enough that you feel the need to focus your entire attention on them. I am glad I have your attention, little 'bot."

Bluestreak was still as a statue, his fans working hard with fear. As the last words registered, he realized he had effectively shut up a while ago, and his ventilation roared even more. Even so, he knew that as close to the truth as the sadistic copter might have been, appearing weak would make things even worse, so he just stumbled back to his chatter, mocking Vortex on his explanations.

The copter smiled behind his mask at the brief silence. He finally decided on a pair of long tweezers and approached the talking mech.

"I see you are still in high spirits, so why don't we play a game, hmm? This is how it goes: As long as you shut up, you are safe. I won't harm you, and you'll get to walk out of here with all your bolts in place," he said and retracted his facial mask, making Bluestreak jump in his plating. Vortex smiled brightly at the trembling mech. "If you talk, though, I'll rip the blades from your helm fans one by one. Just like this."

The copter then proceeded to unlatch the right side of Bluestreak's helm carefully, exposing part of the Autobot's internal audio arrays and the aforementioned fan. He stopped the whirring blades with the tip of a finger and then used the tweezers to twist one of the vanes slowly up and down until it broke with a snap. Bluestreak howled in pain but didn't dare thrash in his restraints, fearful that with Vortex's hands this close to his exposed circuitry, something might get damaged from the movement alone.

"You know what the funny thing is? Your helm won't overheat even when the fans stop working, because it has alternative cooling irrigation, but those fans only cool one other system. You know which one it is? Hehehe, that's right, your vocalizer! You _do _use yours a lot, so I'm pretty sure you need quite a lot of ventilation to keep it from melting," Vortex said conversationally, and he laughed heartily, taking a step back to look Bluestreak directly in the optics.

"I know what you are gonna say. 'It's a one-outcome-only situation, Vortex, where is the fun in that?' Well, to make things more interesting for me, while you concentrate on the very easy task of not making a single sound, I'm gonna take a dive in your processor and see what's going on in there," the interrogator said, as he twirled a data cable between his fingers.

Bluestreak was beyond panic at this point, but even so he couldn't help himself, "You- you, fragging, Unicron-spawned waste-product of an Insecticon. If you think I'm gonna just go along with your- your stupid games, I'm-"

Vortex's laughter echoed in the small room. "Primus, you really like the sound of your own voice," the copter said, and he slipped out of Bluestreak's optic range. The sniper tried to brace for the pain, but he couldn't prevent the scream that escaped his mouth. Vortex returned to look at him silently once more, a playful smile in his lips.

Four more times Bluestreak couldn't stop his vocalizer from bursting in curses.

After the last severed vane fell with a_ tink_ to the floor, Bluestreak pressed his lips together hard to keep the words inside. The Combaticon's frame came into view once more, and Bluestreak off-lined his eyes asthe psychopath connected the data cable to his own port. The sniper waited silently with spluttering fans and jerked in surprise as the back of a hand stroked his cheek lightly.

"Very good, little 'bot. You are learning," the copter said with horrible gentleness, and the sniper heard a soft chuckle as the cable was plugged into one of his ports.

0

Over the vorns, Vortex had learned that in his trade, in spite of what most mecha thought, blunt violence alone didn't usually work. Granted, when the interrogated were soldiers, a good dose of roughing up was in order before he actually got to the more subtle parts of his art. Civilians were far easier- they were already so terrified they just loved to cooperate -but military mecha were generally tougher. All the same, whatever battering went on was merely to facilitate the questioning process.

A worn and injured mech had to constantly split his attention between what is going on around him and what is going on inside him. Once they reach a certain level of compromise, damaged internal systems start pinging their owners constantly with errors and status reports. Dents and other external minor injuries also demanded space in the auto-repair priority queue that were otherwise engaged in more important matters (like severed fuel lines, for example). Unless they were really extreme, these matters didn't hamper a mech's processing power much, given most ran as autonomics, but they nagged. They translated as little voices in the back of their helms, assuring their hosts that things were just not cool, thankyouverymuch.

That distraction was what Vortex was looking for. The more scattered a mech's attention was, the more difficulty it had masking his reactions and defending him. That unnoticed honesty was what Vortex used to wrench open a mind, because, in the long run, interrogation was not about making a prisoner squeal the security codes to his ship's mainframe. Interrogation was all about priorities.

A good interrogator didn't just find out what buttons to push to get what he needed- he found out which was THE button. The single one that got him all the answers, all the open doors, and turned competent, war-hardened soldiers into quivering heaps of glass.

An interrogator's job was actually investigation: all there was to it was finding out the top priority for each subject. It could be closely competing with a bunch of other high-priority notions, but there was always something that an individual cherished most above everything else.

Given that Cybertronian processors are extremely complex sentient systems, no one event could exist isolated from the rest. Even though there was a priority queue, every process was the center of a cluster of related events.

For example, take a mech who valued his bonded mate above everything else. The importance assigned to other values such as honour, loyalty to his superiors, care for himself, etc. might be extremely high, but if pressed enough, all other values buckled to keep that one important thing intact. To what extent a mech could do this without breaking varied greatly, but in the end, if his bonded was truly his first priority, he would betray all he believed in and tell himself it had to be done. Because every mech had one thing that could not be compromised, and that implied he could compromise everything else.

It all worked just like the concentric rings of a spider-drone's web: the center could move all threads, but each thread in turn reached towards the center. The more important the focal point, the bigger the web was, and the longer the threads would reach. The process with the highest priority connected to all of the other processes, and really, that was what it was all about, right?

A button-push to get all the answers. A web that encompassed all threads. Something that if gripped tightly and shaken would pull everything along with it.

0

Bluestreak tried not to scream when the synch-up sequences finished installing. His processor tried to fight the data stream pouring from the port directly, but it was useless. The pain that pulsed in his helm, his low fuel level, and desperate fear had left him extremely feeble. Vortex was bludgeoning his way through his external firewalls with ease.

At some point, all Autobots soldiers had gone through preemptive 'coercive hard-line connection' drills, as Prowl had called them. They had been thoroughly awful. Even though Bluestreak had known the hacking wasn't real- that it was actually a friend masked as an invader- it hadn't made any difference.

All the same, and even though he had finished his sessions with a faint sick feeling, he had managed to internalized a good number of basic defensive tactics (which had been the point of the whole thing).

While Vortex worked on his secondary firewalls, the sniper started to frantically compartmentalize his systems, preparing for the invasion. He interlaced the data adjacent to Vortex's entry point with lines of junk-code and scrambled his memory logs as much as he could. It would give Bluestreak a horrible processor-ache next time he attempted to defrag, but he assumed he would deal with that later... if he had a core left to defrag once this was over. After pushing as many recent memory-file copies into his cache as he could to muddle the copter's advances even more, he hid in a corner of his own mind, writing line after line of firewall-reinforcing code.

Bluestreak knew it was not enough. This was not his battle-field, and for all his aim was worth, he didn't have Prowl's processor power to counter the attacks with massive firewalls, nor Jazz's ability to distract hackers in endless loops while he pointed and laughed.

As mild as his personality was, he was a mech that only knew attack, all bullets flying from afar and relentlessly thrown insulting words. More important than developing defensive skills, he had always trusted in his ability to resist- to just take the blows until it was over. But he had no weapons inside his mind, or at least none that he could use efficiently enough against the interrogator.

Once all his firewalls were down, he knew _what _Vortex would see beneath his words: a terrified creature, that barked and puffed its chest, in hopes that others would see endurance instead of defenselessness.

And he knew Vortex would swallow him whole.

The despairing sharpshooter felt his second row of firewalls crumble. He could do nothing but shiver as the interrogator found his way across the seas of junk data Bluestreak had planted in his own mind.

The interrogator's consciousness was sharp, and he browsed through his in-cache memories with practiced dexterity, as if he was just deciding on something to read from a bunch of recreational datapads, while he wormed his way ever closer to Bluestreak's core. A few times, Bluestreak noticed the copter selecting a given file and uploading it to his own frame, presumably for further analysis. Bluestreak knew he had almost no information of use to the Decepticon cause. What little he had, he had stashed far away from the copter, but he felt sick at the realization that he might be feeding Vortex information to make future interrogations easier. Personal data regarding his comrades and dear ones. More tools for Vortex to hurt them.

He was startled when he heard a voice through his long forgotten internal comm.

.:I thought I'd be hearing you chatter non-stop in here.:. said Vortex.

Bluestreak didn't answer and tried to block himself from the audio feed, but the hard-line forced the connection open. Through the cable he was receiving more than just words, and he realized with absolute disgust that the copter found his despair endearing.

.:How come you are so quiet? What happened to all that brave-mech talk from before?.:.

.:Go away, fragger.:. was all Bluestreak said. As an insult, it was a bit lame, but he had more pressing issues at the moment to deal with. He was still writing line after line of code to strengthen his innermost firewalls and fighting panic with all he had.

.:Hmmmm, no... I don't think I'll go away just yet. You are quite fascinating up close. There's something very different about you in here and you out there. What are you hiding, hmm?:. Vortex's curious voice was becoming darker and more threatening as he spoke. .:You might as well show me yourself, little 'bot, because I'm a klik and a half away from your core-files anyway. There is a lot of stuff in there I'm pretty sure you don't really _need_ to remain functional.:.

Along with his words, Vortex sent through the link media files of previous victims and, as much as he tried, Bluestreak couldn't stop the assault. There were hundreds of images of unfocused optics and slacked jaws, drooling oral fluid down their chests. Bluestreak heard cropped files of interrogation sessions, were mecha gurgled with staticky voices, incoherent answers. They all looked like drones- worse -like mecha reprogrammed by an incompetent medic.

The horrified Autobot felt as if his chips were crumpling in fear. He was so terrified he couldn't even work on the firewalls anymore, and Vortex still kept on advancing.

.:What do you think, hmm? I could erase a few lines of code here and there- I bet your personality component won't miss them much. But I'll tell you what... if you are a good little 'bot and show me around yourself, I won't have to go through the trouble of cutting my own path through your chips. I could leave your processor intact enough that you're not left a drooling idiot. That would be nicer, wouldn't it? To be able to still answer when asked... enough of a processor to think up the words you need.:. More flashes of expressionless face-plates and mangled minds mixed with the words.

On Vortex's workstation, Bluestreak's ventilation gasped and hiccuped with sobs.

Being left like that, an underclocked, imbecilic mess of a mech with a broken processor... It was just too horrible to contemplate. He simply couldn't let it happen. Perhaps if he gave up, then at least-

The sniper's desperate thoughts were interrupted by the loud blare of a siren. His optics on-lined painfully fast, almost white with brightness, and he cried out, startled.

Vortex looked to the door and unplugged himself from the cable. He returned his visor to the shaking mecha and leaned close, speaking directly into his audio. "I'll be back to continue our chat really soon, little 'bot. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say." With that, Vortex got up and exited the room.

Bluestreak felt a wave of relief wash over him, even if it just meant stalling the unavoidable for only one more klik. Exhaustion drove him to recharge without him even realizing it.

0


End file.
